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CORRIGHT DEPOSffi 



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ADVANCED 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



BY 



S. E. FORMAN 

AUTHOR OF "ADVANCED CIVICS," "A HISTORY 
OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1918 



./■- 



n iS 



Copyright, IQ14, iyi8, by 
Thk Century Co. ' 

First edition January, 1914 
Reprinted August, 1914, March. 1915 
February, 1916, September, 1916 
February, 1917, November, 1917 
June, 1918 



AUG 3: iSi8' 



V 






• J 



PREFACE 

The three greatest achievements of the American people 
have been these : they have transformed a continent from a 
low condition of barbarism to a high state of civilization; they 
have developed a commercial and industrial system of vast 
proportions ; and they have evolved the greatest democracy the 
world has yet seen. In this text, therefore, it has been my 
aim to present fully and clearly these three aspects of our 
growth : to show the forces of civilization pressing ever west- 
ward upon the wilderness and extending the boundaries of the 
white man's domain ; to show an industrious and ingenious 
people moving ever forward to make new conquests in the 
economic world ; and to show a liberty-loving nation struggling 
with new problems of government and advancing ever nearer 
to a complete realization of popular rule. 

The manuscript was read by Max Farrand of Yale Uni- 
versity ; James Morton Callahan of the West Virginia Uni- 
versity ; W. J. Kerby of the Catholic University of America ; 
James Curtis Ballagh of the University of Pennsylvania ; Gen- 
eral John C. Black, former President of the Civil Service 
Commission ; H. R. Tucker of the McKinley High School, St. 
Louis, Missouri ; Lynn J. Barnard of the School of Peda- 
gogy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; E. E. Hill of the Chicago 
Normal School, Chicago, Illinois; William Fairley, Principal 
of the Commercial High School, Brooklyn, New York; David 
H. Holbrook of the East High School, Minneapolis, Minne- 
sota ; W. A. Lewis of the Central High School, Kansas City, 
Missouri ; John R. Todd of the College of the City of New 
York; and William A. Wetzel, Principal of the High School, 
Trenton, New Jersey. To these gentlemen I am greatly in- 



PREFACE 



debted for many useful suggestions and criticisms. While 
preparing the book I received many courtesies from the officers 
of the Library of Congress and from those of the Department 
of Prints in the Public Library of New York. 

Washington, D. C. ^- ^^ ^OR^^^N. 



CONTENTS 



I 

A GLANCE AT EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY page 

1. Population i 

2. The Leading Nations 3 

3. Government ; Religion ; Education 4 

4. Industry and Commerce 5 

5. The Progressive Spirit of the Fifteenth Century .... 6 

II 
" THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS " 

6. The Blocking of the Old Trade Routes 8 

7. Explorations of the Portuguese 9 

8. Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama 9 

9. The Voyage of Cabot 11 

III 
ABORIGINAL AMERICA 

10. Physical Characteristics 16 

II: Climate and Soil 17 

12. Plants and Animals 18 

13. The North American Indian 20 

IV 
THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN AND THE FISHERMEN OF FRANCE 

14. The Gold-Hunters from Spain 25 

15. The Fishermen of France 29 

16. The Clash between Spain and France 30 

V 

THE RISE OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

17. England Pushes out upon the Seas 34 

18. The Clash between Spain and England 36 

19. England's First Efforts at Colonization 39 

VI 
THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH, THE FRENCH AND THE DUTCH 

20. The Coming of the English ; Virginia 42 

21. The Coming of the French; Quebec 51 

22. The Coming of the Dutch; New Amsterdam 53 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

VII 

THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND page 

23. The Background of New England Colonization .... 56 

24. The Pilgrims; Plymouth 57 

25. The Puritans ; Massachusetts 62 

VIII 

THE EXPANSION OF MASSACHUSETTS; THE DEVELOPMENT OF 

NEW ENGLAND 

26. New Hampshire 67 

27. Rhode Island 68 

28. Connecticut 70 

29. The Development of New England (1643-1689) .... 72 

IX 
THE OLD DOMINION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 

30. Virginia as a Royal Province 79 

31. Maryland 82 

32. The Carolinas 86 

X 

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 

SS- The End of Dutch Rule in New York and the beginning of 

English Rule 91 

34. New Jersey 95 

35. Pennsylvania and Delaware 97 

XI 
THE COLONIES IN 1700 

36. The Area of Settlement ; Population ; Towns and Cities . . 102 

37. Industrial and Commercial Conditions 105 

38. Social and Political Conditions 109 

XII 

A IL\LF CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH (1700-1730) 

39. Pushing Back the Frontier Line 115 

40. Georgia 121 

XIII 
THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 

41. The Extension of the French Power in America .... 125 

42. The Border Warfare of the French and the English . . . 128 

43. The French in the Mississippi Valley 131 

44. The French and Indian War (1755-1/63) I35 

XIV 
OVER THE MOUNTAINS 

45. Clearing the Way for the White Man 141 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

46. Early Settlements in the Upper Ohio Valley 143 

47. Kentucky 144 

48. Tennessee 146 

49. Life in the Backwoods 148 

XV 

LIFE IN THE COLONIES DURING THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE 
COLONIAL PERIOD (1763-1783) 

50. Industrial and Commercial Conditions (1763-1783) . . . 150 

51. Social and Political Life 154 

XVI 

THE QUARREL 

52. The Relations Between the Colonies and the Mother Country 

in 1703 • • : 159 

53- Questions of Taxation 160 

54. Party Divisions ; Lawlessness 165 

55. The Intolerable Acts i6g 

XVII 

BLOWS AND SEPARATION 

56. The Spirit of Union 171 

57. War and Revolt 173 

58. The Loyalists 175 

59. The Second Continental Congress 176 

60. The British Expelled from Boston 178 

61. The Declaration of Independence 179 

XVIII 
THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 

62. The Contestants and the Plan of Campaign 183 

63. The Campaign at the North 185 

64. The French Alliance 189 

65. The War at the South 192 

66. The Treaty of Peace of 1783 197 

XIX 
A CRITICAL PERIOD (1783-1789) 

67. State Constitutions and State Governments 199 

68. The Confederation (1781-1789) 201 

69. The Evil Days of the Confederation 203 

70. The Northwest Territory 208 

XX 

FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 

71. Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces 211 

T2. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 213 

']2,- The Ratification of the Constitution 217 



X CONTENTS 

XXI 

SETTING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION page 

74. The Organization of the New Federal Government .... 222 

75. The Financial Measures of the New Government .... 226 

76. The Emergence of Political Parties 230 

XXII 

SETTING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION, 1789-1801 

(Continued) 

yy. Foreign Relations 234 

78. The Retirement of Washington and the Election of John 

Adams 237 

79. More Trouble with France 238 

80. The Downfall of the Federalist Party 240 

XXIII 
A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 

81. Social and Political Conditions ■. 243 

82. Industrial and commercial Conditions 246 

83. A Westward-Moving People 249 

XXIV 
THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM (1801-1817) 

84. Jeffersonian Simplicity 255 

85. The Tripolitan War 258 

86. The Louisiana Purchase 259 

87. The Unfriendly Conduct of England and France .... 262 

XXV 

THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM (Continued) 

88. Drifting Toward War 267 

89. The War of 1812 270 

90. Effects of the War of 1812 274 

XXVI 
THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT (1800-1820) 

91. The Land Policy of the National Government 278 

92. Along the Ohio River: Ohio; Indiana; Illinois .... 279 

93. Around the Gulf of Mexico: Louisiana; Mississippi; Ala- 

bama; Florida 285 

94. Across the Mississippi : Missouri 289 

95. The Stages of Frontier Development; Frontier Life . . 291 

XXVII 
AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING (1817-1825) 

96. The Growth of American Nationality 294 

97. The Missouri Compromise 297 

98. The Monroe Doctrine 300 

99. The Tariff of 1824 303 

100. New Leaders : The Election of John Quincy Adams . . . 304 



CONTENTS xi 
XXVIII 

THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) PAGE 

loi. Jackson's Campaign Against Adams 306 

102. Jackson and the Offices 310 

103. Jackson and Nullification 311 

XXIX 
THE JACKSONIAN ERA (Continued) 

104. Jackson and the Bank 318 

105. Jackson and the Indians 320 

106. The Administration of Martin VanBuren (1837-1841) . . 321 

XXX 

PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 

107. The Westward Movement Between 1820 and 1840 .... 326 

108. Commercial and Industrial Progress 3^3 

109. Education and Literature 336 

no. Social Betterment 338 

XXXI 

THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 

111. Tyler and the Whigs 344 

112. The Texan Question 345 

113. The Oregon Question 348 

114. The Acquisition of California and New Mexico .... 351 

XXXII 
THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES (1840-1850) 

115. The Preemption Act; Agricultural Implements; Immigration 357 

116. Along the Upper Mississippi and Around the Great Lakes; 

Iowa ; Wisconsin 360 

117 Along the Pacific Coast: Oregon; California 362 

1 18. Utah ; New Mexico 365 

XXXIII 
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 

119. Slaveholders; Poor Whites; Free Negroes 369 

120. The Legal Status of the Slave 372 

121. Conditions of Slave Life 373 

122. Moral and Industrial Aspects of Slavery 376 

XXXIV 
SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE; PARTY REORGANIZATION 

123. The Wilmot Proviso; The Election of 1848 380 

124. The Compromises of 1850 383 

125. The Execution of the Fugititve-Slave Law 387 

126. The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise (1854) .... 389 



xii CONTENTS 

XXXV 

THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (1854-1860) page 

127. The Beginnings of the Republican Party 393 

128. The Dred Scott Decision 399 

129. The Lecompton Constitution 401 

130. The Lincohi-Douglas Debates 402 

131. The Election of i860 405 

XXXVI 

PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES (1850-1860) 

132. The Westward Movement (1850-1860) 409 

133- Commercial and Industrial Growth; Inventions .... 414 

134. The Growth of Cities 417 

135. Education and Literature 419 

XXXVII 
SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 

136. Secession ; The Confederate States of America .... 423 

137. The Inactivity of the Federal Government; Efforts of Com- 

promise 426 

138. Lincoln and the Forts 427 

139. Preparation for War; the Second Secession 431 

140. The North and the South 433 

XXXVIII 
THE CIVIL WAR 

141. The Beginnings of the War: 1861 437 

142. The Blockade ; The Trent Affair 439 

143. Organization and Plan of Campaign 441 

144. The War in the West, 1862 444 

14s. The War in the East, March 1862-May 1863 447 

146. Emancipation 453 

147. The War in 1863 456 

148. The Close of the Struggle 459 

XXXIX 
WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 

149. Keeping the Ranks Filled 4^>5 

150. Meeting the Expenses of the War 467 

151. Industry and Commerce in War Times 470 

152. War Time Politics 473 

XL 

THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 

153. Lincoln's Policy of Reconstruction ; His Assassination . . 476 

154. Johnson's Efforts in the Work of Reconstruction .... 478 

155. The Congressional Plan of Reconstruction 479 

156. The Quarrel Between the President and Congress; Impeach- 

ment 484 

J '57. The Final Measures of Reconstruction 487 



CONTENTS xiii 

XLI 

EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES (1869-1877) page 

158. Western Development (1862-1877) 490 

159. Industrial Prosperity and Industrial Reverses 493 

160. The Currency and the Tariff 496 

161. The Aftermath of Reconstruction 499 

162. Corruption in High Places 500 

163. The Election of 1876 502 

XLII 
EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH (1877-1885) 

164. Hayes ; Garfield ; Arthur 505 

165. Industrial Progress (1877-1885) 509 

166. Progress in Education 515 

167. The Growth of Cities 518 

168. The Growth of Labor Organizations 519 

169. The Election of Grover Cleveland 521 

XLIII 
THE BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA (1885-1897) 

170. The Regulation of Commerce ; Industrial Unrest .... 524 

171. The New Northwest and the New Southwest 530 

172. The Surplus, The Tariff, and the Trusts 533 

173. Four Years of Financial and Industrial Depression (1893- 

1897) 537 

174. The Election of 1896 542 

XLIV 
THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 

175. The Dingley Bill 546 

176 Intervention in Cuba; the Spanish War; Expansion . . . 547 

177. The Reelection of McKinley; His Assassination .... 554 

178. Roosevelt Continues the Policy of McKinley (1901-1905) . 556 

XLV 
A PROGRESSIVE ERA (1905-1914) 

179. Twentieth Century Progress in Social Matters 564 

180. The Rule of the People 5(3g 

181. Commercial and Industrial Progress (1900-1912) .... 573 

182. The Roosevelt Policies ( 1905-1909) 578 

183. The Administration of President Taft (1909-1913) . . . s8o 

184. The Election of 1912 585 

XLV I 
THE WILSON ADMINISTRATION 

185. Three Great Laws 589 

186. Grave International Problems 591 

187. Progress in Reform 594 

188. War with Germany S98 



ADVANCED 
AMERICAN HISTORY 

I 

^ GLANCE AT EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 

The serious study of American history may properly begin with a 
survey of Europe in the fifteenth century. What kind of a place was the 
Old World at the time the New World was discovered? What kind 
of a civilization did the people of Europe enjoy at the time they first 
began to go out to the wilds of America? What, in brief, was the 
European background of early American history? 

I. POPULATION. 

A striking and highly important fact about the Europe of smau- 
the fifteenth century was the smallness of its population. No of the 

1 (-/' • 1 <• Popular 

complete official census of any modern country had as yet tion 
been taken, but it is safe to say that the population of 
Europe five hundred years ago was hardly a tenth as great 
as it is now. Germany alone to-day can boast of more people 
than could be counted in all Europe at the time of the dis- 
covery of America. In the year 1500 all England contained 
less than half as many people as London contains to-day, and 
all Prussia contained less than a third as many as Berlin now 
contains. France was by far the most populous country, but 
even France did not have a fourth as many people as she has 
to-day. 

X 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Sparso- 
ness of 
Popu- 
lation 



The population ^ of luirope in the fifteenth century was 
sparse as well as small. People for the most part lived on 
farms or in villages. There were many towns, but no great 
cities, riie two largest places were Paris and Venice, but Paris 
was not as large as our Indianai)olis, while Venice was scarcely 
larger than our Toledo, London was still a town, Berlin was 







The Strand in 1560. 

From the map of Ralph Aggas. 

only a fishing village, while Petrograd did not exist at 
all. So, when thinking of the Europe of the fifteenth century 
we must dismiss from our minds the teeming population and 
crowded centers of to-day and picture a very thinly populated 
continent where there were no great cities and where urban 
life on a large scale was unknown. 



1 The estimated population of Europe in tlie year 1500 is as follows: 

England 3,700,000 

France 1 2,600,000 

Prussia 800,000 

Russia 2,000,000 

Austria 9,500,000 

Italy 9,200,000 

Spain 8,500,000 



Total 46,300,000 



EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 3 

2. THE LEADING NATIONS. 

Another striking fact about Europe in the fifteenth century 
was the looseness and weakness of the political organization 
which existed in the several countries. There were no great, 
compact, well-organized sovereign States. Power, like popula- 
tion, was scattered. Most of the countries were broken up into 
numerous political divisions and were without strong central 
governing powers, without truly national governments. Russia Russia 
was just emerging from a condition of barbarism and her influ- 
ence was as yet hardly felt at all in the affairs of Europe. Ger- 
many consisted of a multitude of political fragments, with each oer- 
fragment conducting its own affairs pretty much as it pleased. 
Italy made no pretense of bein^j a nation ; it was simply a 
geographical expression. It consisted for the most part of 
free cities or republics such as Venice, Florence, Sienna, Genoa, itaiy 
These cities, extremely jealous and independent of each other, 
kept the Italian peninsula in a turmoil with their rivalries 
and made it impossible for Italy to become a great, united 
country. Austria had a central government with an emperor Austria 
at the head, but the emperor was held in check by nobles and 
petty princes. France, after many centuries of disunion and France 
discord, had by the end of the fifteenth century been consoli- 
dated into something like a national power and could fittingly 
be called a nation. This century saw likewise the consolidation 
of Spain. For in 1479, by the marriage of Ferdinand and spain 
Isabella, Aragon and Castile were united into a single king- 
dom and in the very year in which America was discovered 
Spain spread her power over Granada and forthwith took a 
foremost place among the States of Europe. England, too, 
at the end of the fifteenth century could be called a nation, 
for by 1485 the King (Henry VII) had put down rebellious England 
nobles and the central government was receiving the obedi- 
ence of all subjects. Thus, four powers, Austria, Spain, 
France, and England, were the only countries of Europe in 
the fifteenth century that could properly be called nations; 



4 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

all the others were too small or too weak and insignificant 
to deserve the name. 

3. GOVERNMENT; RELIGION; EDUCATION. 

Mon- The prevailing type of government was monarchy. The 

only republics w^ere the free cities of Italy and — in the last 
years of the century — Switzerland. In England there was 
a representative Parliament and the semblance, at least, of 
representative government. In most of the countries, how- 
ever, the monarch was absolute ; such power as the King could 
wield he wielded as a despot. In the cities and towns the 
people were usually allowed to manage their own affairs 
The in their own way, but in the management of the affairs of 

leged the country at large the people had no voice. The larger 

affairs of government, whether of a legislative, executive, 
or judicial nature, were in the hands of privileged classes — 
kings, nobles, clergy. Popular government, as we understand 
the term, had no existence whatever. 
The If in its political organization Europe in the fifteenth century 

Church was decentralized and weak, in its religious organization it 
was centralized and strong. The Catholic faith was universal. 
The Greek Catholic church with its head at Constantinople 
prevailed in southeastern Europe and throughout " all the 
Russias." Throughout western Europe — Germany, Austria, 
Italy, France, Spain, England — the supreme and all pervasive 
religious and spiritual force was the Roman Catholic church 
with the Pope (the Bishop of Rome) at its head. Protestant- 
ism as a religious movement or as a distinct form of religious 
belief had not yet appeared. With the exception of a few 
Jews and skeptics the entire population was Catholic. So in 
the fifteenth century Europe was Catholic to the core, and 
the strongest of social forces was the Catholic church, 
univer- The schools were under the control and direction of the 

Im" Church. Education for the most part was confined to the 

Schools clergy and to the wealthy and favored classes. There were 
universities — about fifty in all Europe — ^at which students 
were trained in grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, philosophy, 



EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY s 

and medicine. Below the universities there were in all the 
larger towns church schools in which pupils were taught read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, and the rudiments of Latin. The 
number of pupils who received the benefits of education was 
but an insignificant portion of the whole population. In every 
country the vast majority of the people were illiterate and 
ignorant. 

4. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. 

Where the population was so sparse and the masses so ig- Agricui 
norant there could be of course only a very smiple mdustrial 
life. Everywhere Ae chief occupation of the people was 
agriculture. All classes from the king to the serfs were en- 
gaged in tilling the soil. Even the artisans in the towns 
tilled little plots of land. But agriculture was still in a very 
rude state. Plows were constructed chiefly of wood and the 
reaping of grain was done with a sickle. In the towns spin- 
ning, weaving, tanning, shoe-making, and other trades flour- 
ished. The manufacturing industry was in the household Manufao- 
stage of development and was extremely simple, both m its Indus- 
organization and in its methods. The typical industrial estab- 
lishment was a little shop — usually one of the rooms of a 
dwelling — in which the entire working force consisted of 
three persons : the master, one skilled workman known as a 
journeyman, and an apprentice. Mechanical devices were 
few. The use of steam as a motive power had not yet been 
discovered, and almost all kinds of work were performed by 
hand. 

Commerce in Europe at the opening of the fifteenth century Trado 
was in a prosperous condition. During the long period of orient 
the Crusades (i 100-1350) the merchants of Europe estab- 
lished a thriving trade with the Orient. They sent to the 
Far East woolen goods, tin, copper, and other metals and 
received in exchange spices, drugs, dyes, precious stones, silks, 
and various articles of Oriental luxury. The Mediterranean 
Sea was the center of the world's commercial activity. The 
metropolis of the world was Venice. This remarkable city 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



located at the head of the Adriatic was the place of exchange 
for most of the trade that passed between the Orient and 
Europe. The commercial glory of Venice is a favorite theme 
of historians, yet the volume of her commerce seems to our 
eyes really very small. For example, her best customer was 
Germany, yet the annual value of the German trade with 
Venice in the fifteenth century amounted to only a little more 
than a million dollars. 

Commerce on a grand scale was impossible where the means 
of communication were so bad as they were in Europe in 
the fifteenth century. Trade by water was everywhere ex- 
posed to piracy and the vessels in which the goods were 
carried were small and ill-fitted to sustain the heavy gales 
of the ocean. Trade by land was everywhere exposed to 

highway robbery which was so com- 
mon that it was almost respectable. 
There were but few roads and these 
few were usually in a wretched con- 
dition. Sometimes a road was so 
bad that it required seven or eight 
horses or oxen to draw one of the 
clumsy wagons of the time. As 
bridges were rare the difficulty and 
danger of crossing streams often 
proved to be insuperable obstacles to the movement of goods. 
Worse than all this there was lacking that indispensable hand- 
maid of commerce, the post-office ; there was in all Europe as 
yet no regularly organized postal system. 




A ship of the Fifteenth 
Century. 



5. THE PROGRESSIVE SPIRIT OF THE FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

Such was the civilization which Europeans of the fifteenth 
century enjoyed and which they could take with them to trans- 
plant in a newly-found world. It was a simple and crude 
civilization, to be sure, but it was vigorous and progressive, 
and it contained within itself the seeds of a marvelous growth. 
Indeed, the fifteenth century has to its credit some of the 



EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 7 

greatest movements and events recorded in the history of 
human progress. It was the century of the Renaissance, TUe^^ 
that movement in art and Hterature which restored to man- sanco 
kind the priceless heritage of Greek and Roman culture which 
had been lost when the Roman world was overrun by bar- 
barians in the fifth and sixth centuries. It was the century 
which saw (about 1455) the invention of printing with movable Printing 

type. It was the century in which the mariner's compass came The 

1111-1 1 • Compass 

mto general use and enabled the sailor to pursue his way across 
trackless waters to undiscovered lands. Above all, the fif- 
teenth century was a period of geographical exploration and 
discovery. At the opening of the century all that was known 
of the world was what had been revealed by daring Phoeni- 
cians two thousand years before and by medieval travelers 
like Marco Polo in China and Tartary. Geographical knowl- 
edge was confined chiefly to Europe, southern and middle 
Asia, and northern Africa. The fifteenth century was not far 
advanced when an impulse to exploration began to show itself. 
Bold spirits sailed farther and farther into unknown seas and Expiora= 
penetrated deeper and deeper into unknown lands and by the 
time the century closed the boundaries of geographical knowl- 
edge had extended so far as to include all the continents of 
the earth. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The growth of commerce and its results: Adams, 1 279-312. 

2. Describe the principal medieval trade routes between the Far 
East and Europe : Cheyney, 22-26. 

3. Give an account of the travels and adventures of Marco Polo. 

4. The Crusades : Adams, 259-278. 

5. The Renaissance: Adams, 364-391; also Green, 302-310. 

6. State in the form of a summary the important features of 
European civilization in the fifteenth century. 

1 For the full name of the author and the full title of the book see Reading 
List (Appendix C) where the names of the authors are arranged in alphabetical 
order. 



II 



"THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS" 

What led to the great discoveries and explorations of the fifteenth 
century? How did it happen that more new countries were discovered 
by Europeans in that one century than were discovered in all the ages 
that had gone before? What parts of the earth were then reached for 
the first time and by what nations and what persons were the first great 
discoveries made? 



The Con- 
quests 
of the 
Turks 



Constan- 
tiQople 



Interfer- 
ence 

with the 
Trade 
of the 
Orient 



6. THE BLOCKING OF THE OLD TRADE ROUTES. 

The impulse which led men of Europe in the fifteenth 
century to go out upon unknown waters and find strange 
coasts v/as due almost wholly to a pressure of commercial 
conditions. About 1450, the trade which the Mediterranean 
cities were carrying on with the Orient received a serious check 
at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. These truculent and con- 
quering barbarians began to overrun Asia Minor in the four- 
teenth century and did not halt in their career of conquest until 
they had spread their power over all the countries bordering 
upon the Black Sea and the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. 
In 1453 they captured Constantinople, and from that date the 
overland trade with the Orient began rapidly to decline. The 
new Turkish masters committed such depredations upon com- 
merce that merchants were forced to abandon the old overland 
routes to the Orient and seek a passage for their goods by way 
of the River Nile and the Red Sea. But they could not long 
avail themselves even of this outlet, for the Turks, after taking 
Constantinople, carried their conquest southwards and by 15 17 
had all Syria and Egypt in their power. The Ottoman Gov- 
ernment was as unfriendly to commerce in Cairo and Alex- 
andria as it was in Constantinople. It imposed such heavy 
tolls upon goods moving upon the Nile and the Red Sea as to 

8 



"THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS" 9 

render trade by this route unprofitable. Thus by the opening 
of the sixteenth century the Turkish conquerors had interposed 
insurmountable barriers to all trade moving by the old routes 
between Europe and the Far East. 

7. EXPLORATIONS OF THE PORTUGUESE. 

But the movements of commerce are well nigh irresistible. Henry 
Trade will have an outlet; if it cannot surmount barriers it gator 
will go around them. As soon as the Turks began to interfere 
with trade moving by the old routes, men began to seek new 
routes to the Orient. In this search Portugal took the lead. 
Even before the fall of Constantinople, Prince Henry of 
Portugal, — known as Henry the Navigator, — a man distin- 
guished above all his contemporaries for his encouragement 
of science and geographical discovery, began to explore the 
African coast, and by 1434 his sailors had passed Cape 
Bojador, the southernmost point then known to Europeans, 
Ten years later Cape Verde had been passed and before the 
Prince died (1460) Portuguese ships had reached Sierra 
L.eone. 

The work of exploration begun by Henry the Navigator was 
carried forward by those who came later, and by 1471 Portu- 
guese sailors had followed the A f rican coast beyond the Equa- 
tor. In 1487 Bartholomeu Dias, a Portuguese captain, Barthoio* 
reached the Cape of Good Hope and caught sight of the Indian Bias 
Ocean. Dias wanted to sail on, but his crew refused to go 
further. He returned to Lisbon convinced that he had found 
an ocean route to the Indies. 

8. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND VASCO DA GAMA. 
About the time Dias was making his brilliant and ever mem- The 

Views of 

orable voyage, Christopher Columbus appeared in Portugal coiumbus 
with a plan for reaching the Indies by sailing directly west shape 
across the Atlantic. Columbus thought that such a voyage Eartb 
was possible because he believed the earth to be round like 
a ball. Learned men of the time quite generally believed the 
earth to be a globe, but with the exception of a few astrono- 



10 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



mers like Toscanelli of Florence this belief was half-hearted 
and theoretical. To the mind of Columbus the sphericity of 
the earth was a living truth. That India could be reached by 
sailing westward was a proposition concerning which he had 

no doubt whatever. He believed 
that a voyage westward from Lis- 
bon straight across to Cipango 
(Japan) was about as simple and 
as practicable as a trip from his 
native city of Genoa across to the 
island of Corsica. Such a voyage 
seemed to him much shorter than 
it actually was because he enter- 
tained the common error that the 
earth was much smaller than it ac- 
tually is. 

We do not know precisely when 

venture upon a westward voyage, 

the time of the discovery of the 

whole being was absorbed in plans 




Christopher Columbus. 

Columbus decided to 
but we know that at 
Cape of Good Hope hi 5 



for the undertaking. Such a voyage required the support of 
the rich and powerful, and Columbus labored for years, now 
in Portugal, now in Spain, to secure royal assistance and 
approval. The way of the suppliant was long and hard, but 
Columbus was as persistent a man as ever lived, and his 
indomitable perseverance was at length rewarded and the 
needed assistance secured. 

On August 3, 1492, under the powerful auspices of Spain, 
Columbus sailed westward from Palos and on October 12 he 
landed at a little island (possibly San Salvador) of the Ba- 
hama group. After skirting the coast of Cuba and landing 
at Haiti, where he left some men to build a fort and make 
a settlement — the first to be made in the New World — he 
returned to Spain (March 1493), with the startling news 
that he had reached the coast of India by a westward route. 
This was glorious news for Spain, for it now seemed that the 
trade of the Orient, the great prize for which the commer- 



"THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS" ii 

cial world was contending, would be carried in Spanish bot- 
toms and landed at Spanish ports, and that the enormous 
profits of this trade would go into the coffers of Spanish 
merchants. 

Columbus followed up his first voyage with three others. 
On his third voyage (begun in 1498) he reached the mainland Later 

Voyages 

of South America. On his last voyage he skirted the coast of 

Columbus 

of Central America. These strange coasts he was sure be- 
longed to Asia. That they were the coasts of a new conti- 
nent, a New World, seems never to have occurred to the great 
discoverer himself or to any of his contemporaries. 

The discoveries made by Columbus shed glory upon Spain, vasco da 
but they failed to bring to Spanish merchants the coveted trade ^^ 
of the Orient. The splendid cities of the Far East for which 
Columbus always headed his ships were touched first by Portu- 
guese prows. In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed for India in 
the path marked out by Dias, and in May 1498, entered the 
harbor of Calicut, on the coast of India. The next year he 
returned to Lisbon, bringing with him a cargo of nutmegs, 
cloves, pepper, rubies, emeralds, silks, and satins. Here in- 
deed was the trade of the Orient and here at last was a new 
route to the Indies. And Portugal made the best of her 
great discovery. Portuguese ships at once began to make 
regular trips to the Orient. In the very next year after the 
return of da Gama to Lisbon, Cabral, a Portuguese captain, cabrai 
sailed with a fleet from Lisbon for India by the route round the 
Cape of Good Hope. On the voyage down the coast of Africa, 
Cabral swung too far westward and by chance touched the 
coast of Brazil. Thus, if America had not been discovered by 
Columbus in 1492, it would have been discovered by a Portu- 
guese captain a few years later than that. 

9. THE VOYAGE OF CABOT. 

England, as a maritime nation, was deeply interested in a cabot 
water route to the Orient, and Englishmen were not slow in Henry vii 
finding their way tO the strange coasts which were discovered 
by Columbus and which were thought to be the gateways to 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Line of 
Demarca- 
tion 



the riches of India. But the leader of England's achieve- 
ments in the work of discovery was not an Englishman : as 
with Spain, so with England, the work of *' finding strange 
coasts " in the West was carried forward by an Italian sailor. 
In 1496 John Cabot, probably a native of Genoa and certainly 
at one time a citizen of Venice, appeared at the court of Henry 
VII of England, seeking royal authority and protection for a 
voyage to be made to the island of Cathay (China) by a west- 
ern or northwestern route. The object of the voyage was to 
" traffique for the spices as the Portingals (Portuguese) did." 
The King lent a willing hand to the enterprise and authorized 
Cabot " to sail to all ports, countries, and seas of the East 
and West and North under our banners and ensigns — to set 
up our banners and ensigns in any village, town, castle, isle, 
or maine land, newly found, getting unto us the rule, title, and 
jurisdiction of the same." Cabot was not authorized to sail 
in a southerly course because in that direction there was dan- 
ger of conflict with Spain. 

In giving Cabot authority to lay claim to any part whatever 
of the western continent the English King was ignoring the 
terms of a treaty made in 1494 between the King of Spain 
and the King of Portugal. This treaty, which was made in 
accordance with the wishes of Pope Alexander VI, provided 
that a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands 

should be a " line of demarcation," 
and that all heathen lands east of 
this line should belong to Portugal, 
and that all heathen lands west of 
this line should belong to Spain. 
When Brazil was discovered by 
Cabral, it was promptly claimed 
by Portugal on the ground that it 
was east of the line of demarca- 
tion. So, when Henry \^II au- 
thorized Cabot to make his west- 
ern voyage the New World in its entirety had already been 
appropriated by Spain and Portugal. 



;^y,^ 





The Line of Demarcation. 



" THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS " 



13 



Cabot set sail from Bristol, then the chief seaport of Eng- ^^^°*g| 
land, in May 1497, and in June I497 discovered that " land 
which no man ^ before 
that time had at- 
tempted." The place 
where Cabot landed 
cannot be precisely 
located, but it was on 
the coast of North 
America somewhere 
between southern Lab- 
rador and Halifax. 
He, on the other hand, 
thought he had landed 
on the coast of China 
in the territory of the 
Grand Cham. Like 
Columbus he was 
searching for the east- 
ern coast of Asia and, 
like Columbus, he 
thought he had found 
the object of his quest. 
The region discovered 
was cold and barren, 

and was without riches of any kind. In 1498 Cabot made a 
second voyage to America, and it is generally believed that 

1 The Norsemen. — For a long time it was quite generally believed, and by 
some it is still believed, that neither Cabot nor Vespucius was the first European 
to reach North America. According to the sagas or Scandinavian legends, a 
Norse sea-rover named Leif Ericson sailed from Iceland about the year looo, and 
steering in a southwesterly direction, explored the American coast as far south 
as New England. Leif is said to have landed somewhere on the coast of what 
is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where he made a settlement called 
Vinland, but just where Vinland was historians are unable to decide. Many 
reject outright the story of Leif Ericson on the ground that the sagas upon 
which the story rests cannot be taken as narratives of historical truth. Even if 
the voyage of Leif was actually made, it could have had but little importance in 
the history of exploration, for it did not lead sailors of other nations to make 
voyages to America, and it is likely that all memory of it had faded from men's 
minds by the time of Columbus. 




statute Miles 



The discoveries of Cabot and Cartier. 



14 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



New 
Centers 
of trade 



on the second voyage he sailed along the American coast 
from Labrador to the Delaware Bay. The voyages of Cabot 

are surrounded by much doubt and 
uncertainty, yet this much is clear: 
a voyage was made in the summer 
of 1497, and it resulted in the dis- 
covery of the continent of America. 
The significance of the voyage was 
that Cabot claimed the " new- 
found-land " for England, and 
that this claim became the foun- 
dation-stone of the English power 
in the New World. ^ 

So, the interference of the Turk 
in the fifteenth century with the 
trade of the Orient influenced pro- 
foundly the course of human his- 
tory. In the first place it caused 
Americus Vespucius. commerce to flow in new channels, 

and it directed trade to new centers. The voyage of da Gama 
marked the beginning of a movement that was to take the 
best trade of the world from the cities of the Mediterranean 
and give it to the cities of northern and western Europe. 
After that voyage Venice and Genoa declined, while Lisbon 




1 The Naming of America. That Cabot was the first of the great navigators to 
reach the American mainland is a matter of dispute. Some historians contend that 
Americus Vespucius, a native of Florence, Italy, sailed from Cadiz in May 1497, 
and having crossed the Atlantic, landed on the coast of Honduras a few days 
before it had been reached by Columbus. Whether this contention is true or 
not, it is certain that \'espucius was among the first who made voyages to the 
newly-found world. It is also certain that he gave to the New World its name. 
The naming of America was accomplished in a roundabout way and without the 
knowledge of Vespucius himself. In 1504 Vespucius wrote an account of his 
voyage to the newly-found tvorld and his narrative fell into the hands of Martin 
Waldseemiiller, a professor of geography in the College of St. Die in Lorraine. 
In 1507 WaldseemiillL-r published a new geography in which he suggested that 
the new world be given the name America. The suggestion of the geographer 
was followed. Waldseemiiller intended that only Brazil — the region described 
by Vespucius in his narrative — should be called America, but the name spread 
northward and southward and in time the whole western continent came to be 
called -Vmerica. Thus it was an Italian that discovered the western world, an 
Italian that first reached its mainland, and an Italian that gave it its name. 



"THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS" 15 

and Antwerp prospered as never before. In the second place Extent 
the conduct of the Turks caused navigators of Europe to go discov 
out and find strange coasts in all quarters of the globe. Be- 
fore the close of the fifteenth century Portuguese captains 
sailing southward had explored the west coast of Africa 
throughout its entire length, while Columbus and Cabot after 
sailing westward had explored the eastern coast of the western 
continent from the frozen shores of Labrador to the region 
of the Orinoco river. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. What services to navigation were rendered by Henry the Navi- 
gator? Cheyney, 60-78. 

2. Why were Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century eager to 
find a new route to the Indies? Cheyney, 9-21. 

3. Give an account of the discovery of America as the event was 
described by Columbus himself : Halsey, I, 30-37 ; or Hart I, 35-40. 
Give an account of the voyage as described by Washington Irving: 
Halsey I, 23-30. 

4. What experiences had prepared Columbus for making his great 
voyage? Bourne, 8-19. 

5. The voyages of the Cabots: Bourne, 54-61; Halsey I, 46-53. 

6. Describe the voyages of Vespucius according to his own account 
of them : Halsey I, 54-63. 

7. The men from Asia and Norway : Halsey I, 3-9. 

8. How the Norwegians came to Vinland : Halsey I, 10-16. 

9. The naming of America: Bourne, 84-103; Channing I, 42-48. 

10. When and where was Christopher Columbus born? Where are 
his remains now buried? Is there a picture of Columbits that is 
known to be a true likeness of the man? 

11. The three important dates in this chapter are 1453, 1492 and 
1497. With these dates begin the preparation of a chronological 
table of American History. Thus — 

1453. Constantinople captured by the Turks. 

1492. America discovered by Christopher Columbus. 

1497. North America reached by John Cabot. 

12. Special Reading. C. R. Beazley, Prince Henry the Nazigator. 
C. H. McCarthy, Columbus and His Predecessors. John Fiske, Dis- 
cover y of America. 



HI 

ABORIGINAL AMERICA 

What kind of a continent was it which Cabot discovered? What 
kind of a place was al)original America? Especially, what kind of a 
place was our own country at the time when white men first began to 
come to its shores? 

10. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. 

The Beginning on the Atlantic side of the United States and 

piafns passing westward to the Pacific we find five distinct physical 
regions: (i) The Atlantic Coast Plain consists of a strip of 
lowlands of a mean breadth of about loo miles lying between 
the ocean and the Appalachian Mountains and extending from 
the region where Cabot probably landed to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico.* The coastal region invited settlement, for the gently 
sloping plain was indented by fine land-locked bays into which 
flowed rivers that were navigable far up into the interior. 
(2) Going up from the coastal plain we come by easy ascent 
The to the Appalachian Region, a system of table-lands, mountain- 

^hian^ ranges, and intervening valleys extending from Nova Scotia 
Kegion ^^ Alabama. The elevation of this region varies from a few 
hundred to several thousand feet above sea-level. The Ap- 
palachian System includes the greater part of the States of 
New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee, the total area being about 300,000 
square miles. (3) Descending the western slope of the Ap- 
The jialachian highland we enter the great Mississippi Valley, 

issfppi which is drained by the Mississippi River and its tributaries, 

VaUey ___^ 

1 The ijortion of this region embraced by New England and New York is for 
the most part the worn-out end of the Appalachian mountain-system and is 
lacking in many of the features of a coastal plain. 

16 



ABORIGINAL AMERICA 17 

the waters of the valley finding their way to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. This valley has an area of more than 1,000,000 square 
miles, and throughout its whole extent its surface is either 
perfectly level or slightly rolling, the only mountains to break 
the monotony being the Ozarks of Missouri and Oklahoma. 
North of the Mississippi Valley and separated from it by an 
almost imperceptible watershed is the vast basin known as 
the Lake Regrion. This is drained by the Great Lakes, a se- The 

Lako 

ries of mediterranean seas which have an outlet to the Atlan- Region 
tic through the St. Lawrence River. The Mississippi Valley 
and the Lake Region may be taken together and regarded as 
one mighty trough, for the ridge of land which divides the 
two basins is so low that in flood-time it is sometimes covered 
with water so that canoes can glide from the rivers of one 
region into the rivers of the other. (4) Leaving the Mis- 
sissippi Valley we ascend the ever rising ridges of the Cor- The 
dillera, a vast plateau, which extends from Alaska to Central lera 
America and which in the United States has an elevation of 
from five to ten thousand feet and a breadth of a thousand 
miles. Upon the broad and lofty base of the Cordillera rise 
the Rocky, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade ranges. (5) 
From the Cordillera we pass down the Pacific Slope to the sea. The 

• • Pacific 

This slope consists of a series of mountain-ranges with m- slope 
tervening valleys and table-lands. Along the greater part of 
the coast the land goes down quite abruptly to the ocean. 
The western coast did not invite settlement, for on that side 
there are but few good harbors, and but few navigable streams 
lead up into the land. 

II. CLIMATE AND SOIL. 

The climate of North America south of the Arctic region Mean 
resembles in all important respects the climate of Europe. The ture 
breezes and warm streams of the two oceans which wash the 
coasts of the continent supply it with needful heat and mois- 
ture. The mean annual temperature of the United States is 
about 53° Fahrenheit, which is substantially the same as that 
of western Europe, although the extremes of heat and cold 



i8 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

in North America are much greater than they are in Europe. 
The conditions of moisture and rainfall in America also re- 
semble those which prevail in Europe. The average annual 

■Rainfau rainfall in the United States is about 30 inches ; yet west of 
the looth meridian are vast areas where the rainfall is insuffi- 
cient for successful farming. In the region of the Cordillera 
the climate is colder and the rainfall is less, because the lofty 
Sierras rob the winds blowing from the Pacific of much of 
their heat and moisture. 

Besides having a good climate the United States has a good 

Sou soil. East of the looth meridian the soil of America is even 

more fertile than that of Europe. The Atlantic Coast Plain, 
the part first settled by Europeans, consists almost entirely of 
tillable land with soil suitable for the growing of a variety 
of crops. Wheat, maize, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton 
can all be profitably raised on the coastal plain. The Appa- 
lachian Region includes some of the most fertile valleys in 
the world, and in this region also were almost inexhaustible 
treasures of iron and coal. The Mississippi Valley, fertile 
throughout its whole vast extent and capable of supporting a 
population of more than 100,000,000 people, has been fittingly 
called " the most magnificent dwelling place prepared by God 
for man's abode." In the Cordillera region the soil is for 
the most part sterile and therefore unfit for agricultural pur- 
poses unless redeemed by irrigation. This region, however, 
is rich in mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead. The Pacific 
Slope with its well-watered valleys is a region of such great 
fertility that it has been called the garden-spot of the world. 
So, when the white men first landed on the American shores 
they found the climate as agreeable as that of Europe and 
the soil as fertile. 

12. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 

Forests The first Europeans who came to America beheld a plant 

life more wondrous and more luxuriant than that which they 
left behind. Over most of the seaboard region, over all the 
Appalachian highland, and over most of the Mississippi Val- 



/ 



ABORIGINAL AMERICA 19 

ley was spread a rich mantle of primeval forest. The trees 

of this forest were so thick and the undergrowth so dense 

that the settler had to carve his way through a wall of living 

green. Along the east coast the trees were for the most part 

of soft wood, " the towering pine and the hemlock." In the 

Appalachian Region and the Mississippi Valley were forests 

of hardwoods : oaks, hickories, maples, sycamores, beeches, 

elms. West of the Mississippi River were the prairies, Prairies 

stretches of land made treeless by the fires of the aborigines. 

On the Cordillera trees were in many places wanting, but in 

the valleys of the Pacific Slope there were great forests of 

the tallest and largest trees that could be found on the globe. 

Since almost the entire surface of aboriginal America was Maize 
covered with forests the area of agriculture was of necessity 
small. The chief products of the field were beans, tobacco, 
pumpkins, potatoes, and, most important of all, maize, or 
Indian corn. " It would be difficult," says Shaler, " to convey 
an adequate impression of the importance of this grain in 
the early history of America. It yields not less than twice 
the amount of food per acre of tilled land with much less 
labor than is required for one acre of small grain, it is far 
less dependent upon the change of the seasons, and the yield 
is much more uniform than that of the old European grains. 
Probably the greatest advantage of all that this beneficent 
plant afforded to the early settlers was the way in which it 
could be planted. The aborigines with no other implements 
than stone axes and a sort of spade also armed with stone 
would kill the trees by girdling or cutting. This admitted The 

. J' & t, fe Girdling 

light to the soil. Then breaking up patches of earth they of Trees 
planted the grains of maize among the standing trees. The 
grain was ready for domestic use within three months from 
the time of planting." The pumpkin, too, was a product of Pumpkin 
aboriginal tillage. This was raised in the corn-field, being 
planted in the spaces between the stalks of corn. Settlers in 
America quickly learned the art of raising corn and pumpkins, 
with the result that these crops were for a long time the chief 
sources of food for the colonists. 



20 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

In aboriginal times the forests of the United States abounded 
Game in animals and game to an extent that cannot now be easily 

conceived. A small party of ex])lorers in the Appalachian 
region on a single trip killed 12 buffaloes, 8 elks, 53 bears, 20 
deer, 4 wild geese, 150 turkeys, a quantity of small game and 
reported that '* they might have killed three times as much if 
they had wanted it." Wild pigeons swarmed above the 
primeval forests in such nunil)crs that they darkened the 
heavens like a cloud. The most important of the animals 
were the fur-bearers: the beaver, the otter, the sable, the 
The badger, the wolverine, and, above all, the buffalo. This ma- 

jestic animal, now practically extinct, formerly roamed in 
countless numbers over the greater part of North America. 
Its value to the aborigines was inestimable, for its flesh was 
used for food, its hides were used for clothing, its bones were 
fashioned into weapons and implements, and its sinews were 
. made into bowstrings. More important to the early settlers 
Fishes than the animals in the forest were the fishes in the rivers and 
lakes, and in the waters along the coast. Here were shad and 
perch and trout and salmon and bass, and, especially, the cod 
and mackerel that were found in great shoals along the coast 
from Newfoundland to Cape Hatteras. 

13. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN, 

The To the first European settlers the most important fact of 

Amerkian aboriginal America was the aboriginal man — the American 
Indian. Columbus found a strange kind of people in the 
tropics and called them Indians because he thought they were 
inhabitants of the East Indies. Cabot also found a new race 
of men on the ice-bound shores of the " new-found-land." 
Indeed, wherever the white man landed in the new world he 
.met with a new type of human beings who in time came to 
be known by the name which Columbus gave them. 
Physical The aborigines from Labrador to Patagonia constituted a 

race distinct from all other races. There were, to be sure, 
local differences between the several tribes of this race; some 
tribes had considerable culture, others had none ; some were 



Numbers 



ABORIGINAL AMERICA 21 

engaged chiefly in hunting, while others were chiefly tillers 
of the soil. Yet all Indians, almost without exception, had 
certain physical traits in common: all had straight black hair, 
all had crimson- (or copper-) colored complexions, all had high 
cheek-bones and angular faces, and all wore a grave demeanor. 

Although Indians were found everywhere in the New World, 
their actual numbers were surprisingly small. Within the en- 
tire territory of what is now the United States there were 
probably not more than 300,000 Indians — men, women, and 
children. That is to say, at the time the white men came to 
America the density of the Indian population was about one 
person for every eight or ten square miles of territory. 

The distinct tribes into which the Indians were divided were The 

Leading 

over three hundred in number. In the South these tribes were Tribes 
sometimes very small, ten or twenty wigwams constituting an 
independent nation. Among the larger tribes of the South 
were the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and 
Seminoles. In the North was the great Algonquin family 
which held most of the country from the Atlantic seaboard 
to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes to the 
Carolinas. In the region of what is now northern New York 
lived the Iroquois family surroimded by the Algonquins " like The 
an Iroquoian island in an Algonquian ocean." West of the 
Mississippi River were the wandering bands of the fierce Sioux 
family. 

For purposes of government the Indians of a tribe were clans 
organized into clans. The clan was a group the members of 
which were united, or were supposed to be united, by 
ties of blood. The civil head of the clan was the sachem ; 
its military leader was the chief. In large clans there were 
sometimes several chiefs. Both the sachems and the chiefs 
were elected by the vote of the clans, the women sometimes 
participating in the election. Each clan had a council con- 
sisting usually of male adults, although the women were also 
admitted to the council. In the council public questions were 
freely discussed, and the policy of the clan in respect to impor- 
tant matters was determined. Where the tribes were com- 



22 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Confeder- 
acies 



Religion 



The 
Manitou 



Civiliza- 
tioa 




posed of many clans — which was usually the case — there 
was a tribal council which consisted of the chiefs of the several 

clans. For purposes of 
mutual defense tribes 
would often unite and 
form a confederacy. Of 
these confederacies the 
most important in North 
America was that formed 
by the five Iroquois tribes: 
the Mohawks, the Oneidas, 
the Onondagas, Cayugas, 
and the Senecas. This 
union was known as the 
Five Nations.^ 

More important to the 
Indian than his govern- 
ment was his religion. 
This was a low form of 
polytheism, consisting of 
a blind worship of the spirits which were thought to reside 
in the objects of nature. Every object, whether animate or 
inanimate, had its spirit or god — its manitou — and it was to 
the manitou that the Indian directed his prayer. The sup- 
pliant invoked the manitou that could give the aid desired. 
The agricultural tribes prayed to the rain gods ; the hunters 
to the manitous of animals ; the doctors to the god of plants 
and herbs. Religion dominated all the important acts of life, 
and the priest was a more powerful person than the chief 
himself. 

Broadly speakmg the Indians with whom the Europeans 
first had to deal were wild and uncivilized. They lived chiefly 
by fishing and by the chase. The men did the hunting and 
fighting. The women did the housework and also tilled the 
soil, when any was tilled. They were generally regarded as 

1 In 1 713 the Iroquois were joined by the Tuscaroras from the South and 
thereafter the Iroquois Confederacy was known as the Six Nations. 



An Indian Village 



ABORIGINAL AMERICA 



23 



inferior to men; yet the woman was regarded as the undis- 
puted mistress of household affairs and she was allowed to 
hold property in her own name. The dwellings were, as a 
rule, huts or wigwams made of skin or bark, but the Iroquois 
lived in long, low houses which were sloped " much like an 
arbor over-arching a garden-walk." The " long-house " was 
sometimes more than two hundred feet in length and con- 
tained twenty or thirty families, each family occupying its 
own apartment. The principal arts in which the Indians 
were skilled were basket-making, weaving, and pottery. The 




Indians preparing their food. 



Indian wore but little clothing except in the cold weather. 
Both the men and the women were fond of glittering orna- 
ments, and it was the universal custom to paint and tattoo 
the body with fanciful designs. 

The character of the American Indian has been depicted The 
by Parkman as follows : " The Indian is a true child of of the 
the forest and the desert. The wastes and solitudes of na- Indian 

(Park- 
ture are his congenial home. His unruly pride and untamed man) 

freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains, cataracts, 

and rivers among which he dwells. In an Indian community 

each man is his own master. He abhors restraint and owns 

no other authority than his own capricious will. Ambition, 

revenge, envy, jealousy are his ruling passions, and his cold 



24 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

temperament is little exposed to those effeminate vices which 
are the bane of milder races. His pride sets all language at 
defiance. He loathes the thought of coercion and few of his 
race have ever stooped to discharge a menial office. A wild 
love of liberty, an utter intolerance of control lie at the basis 
of his character and fire his whole existence. With him the 
love for glory kindles into a burning passion and to allay its 
cravings he will dare cold and famine, fire, tempest, torture, 
and death itself. He is trained to conceal passion and not 
subdue it. In the midst of his family and friends he hides 
his affection under a mask of icy coldness, and in the tor- 
turing fires of his enemy the haughty sufferer maintains to 
the last his look of grim defiance." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Waterways, Portages, Trails and Mountain Passes: Farrand, 

23-38. 

2. The antiquity of man in North America : Farrand, 70-87. 

3. Social organization of the Indians: Farrand, 195-214. 

4. A concise character of the Indians: Hart 11, 334-336. 

5. What important geographical names in this State are of Indian 
origin? Give an account of any Indian remains that may be in your 
neighborhood. Name two novelists whose books abound in descrip- 
tions of Indian life. 

6. Read in the class the passage in Hiawatha describing the build- 
ing of a birch-bark canoe. 

7. The continent and its early inhabitants: Bassett, 1-21. 

8. Special Reading. E. C. Semple, American History and its Geo- 
graphic Conditions. D. G. Brinton, American Races. George Ban- 
croft, History of the United States II, 86-136. N. C. Shaler, United 
States of America. See also articles on " North America " and " United 
States " in Mill's International Geography. 



IV 

THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN AND THE FISHERMEN 

OF FRANCE 

What advantage did Europeans take of the splendid opportunities 
which the New World offered? What were the immediate results of 
the discoveries made by Columbus and Cabot? What nations were the 
first to come forward and explore the New World and avail them- 
selves of its resources? 

14. THE GOLD-HUNTERS FROM SPAIN 

There was no immediate rush of emigrants from Europe slowness 
to the new continent discovered by Columbus. Not as many settie- 
came in a hundred years as now come in a single year. In- 
deed, many years passed before it was known that a new con- 
tinent had really been found, and even after it was known 
that America was a separate continent and not a part of 
Asia, it was still many years before there was anything like 
a distinct movement of population to the western world. 
There was no overcrowding in Europe as yet, and there was 
no good reason why the comforts of civilized life should be 
exchanged for a wretched existence in a far-off desolate land. 

Nevertheless, Europeans in small numbers began to go out The 

1-1 (T'l Spanish 

to the New World almost as soon as it was discovered. The Power 

in the 

first to go were Spanish adventurers, who followed in the west 

° '^ Indies 

wake of Columbus. Some of these promptly took up the 
work of colonizing the newly-found islands. The settlement 
of Haiti (p. 10) was pushed forward and as early as 1496 
Santo Domingo, the first town inhabited by white men in the 
New World, was founded. The settlement of Porto Rico 
was also quickly begun and by 15 10 the island had a regularly 
organized colonial government. In 1509 Diego Columbus, 

25 



26 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Gold 
Hunters 



Balboa 



Ponce 
da Leon 



a brother of Christopher, took possession of Jamaica. Two 
years later the colonization of Cuba began, and by 15 19 the 
foundations of Havana were laid. Thus an almost immediate 
result of the voyages of Columbus was the formal estal:)lish- 
ment of the Spanish power in tlie West Indies. 

But many of the early Spanish adventurers went to the 
New World not to found colonies but to search for the gold 
which was said to exist in such great abundance in the East ; 
for, be it remembered, in the minds of these gold-himters 
it was not a New West that Columbus had discovered but 
the Old East. When no gold was found along the coast the 
soldiers of fortune were always told by the natives that in- 
land, far back from the coast, there were great mountains of 
the shining metal. So the adventurers would leave their ships 
and make their way to the place where the gold was said to 
be. Among the first to leave the coast and strike out into 
the wilderness was Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa. In 15 13 this 
restless Spaniard gathered around him some comrades on the 
coast of what is now Panama and set out to find the gold 
which he had heard was plentiful in the region toward the 
south. Making his way through forests and jungles, Bal- 
boa climbed the lofty mountain-ridge which extends across the 
Isthmus. From the crest of the mountain he beheld (Septem- 
ber 1 5 13) in the distance a great body of water. Then de- 
scending to the shore, he waded into the water and took formal 
possession of it in the name of the King of Spain. He had 
reached the new sea by traveling south, so he called it the 
South Sea.^ It was, of course, the Pacific Ocean. 

But even before Balboa had started southward in his search 
for gold, another adventurer had sought to find the precious 
metal by traveling northward. Ponce de Leon, who had 



1 Something of tlie extent of the ocean discovered by Balboa was learned by 
Magellan, a Portuguese captain in the service of Spain; Magellan starting from 
St. Lucar in Spain in 15 19 sailed along the eastern coast of South America, passed 
through the strait which bears his name, and crossed the Pacific, making his way 
to the Philippine Islands, where he was killed by the natives. His companions 
continued the voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to Spain, thus completing 
(in 1522) the first circumnavigation of the world. 



THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN 



27 



come out with Columbus on his second voyage, and who in 
1509 was made governor of Porto Rico, was told by the 
Indians that to northward there lay an island where gold 
was abundant and where there was a river whose waters would 
restore youth to the aged. Ponce, being no longer young, set 
out in 1 5 13 to find the water of Bimini, as the wonderful 
island was called. Winding through the Bahamas, he ap- 
proached (April 2) a coast which he called Florida (Flozver- 
land), taking possession of it in the name of the King of Spain. 
Ponce was soon followed by other Spanish explorers, and by 




Explorations of Ponce de Leon, De Soto, and Coronado. 



1525 the Atlantic coast of North America from Florida to 
Labrador had been visited by Spaniards and had been claimed 
in the name of Spain. Thus at this early date both England 
and Spain were claiming the Atlantic seaboard. 

The voyage of Ponce de Leon also led to the exploration uarvaez 
by Spaniards of portions of North America bordering upon cabeza 
the Gulf of Mexico. In 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez set out 
from Tampa Bay with three hundred men to march by land 



28 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Soto 



along the entire Icnglli of the gulf coast, but by the time the 
coast of Texas was reached the expedition had ended in fail- 
ure, and in the death of most of those who had joined it. 
One of the survivors, Cabeza de Vaca, an officer, took up the 
work begun by Narvaez. He pushed on to the west and by 
1536 had traversed the country from the Texas coast to the 
Pacific. De Vaca was soon followed by the most famous of 
all the Spanish explorers, Hernando de Soto. This dashing 
knight-errant of Spain was given power to conquer and settle 
the whole region now included in the southern part of the 
United States. In 1539 De Soto landed at Tampa Bay with 
six hundred men and began to explore the interior of the 
continent. When he reached what is now northern Alabama, 
he turned westward and marched by a zigzag course until he 
came (in 1541) to the Mississippi River. Here he fell sick 
of a fever and died, and his expedition came to a disastrous 
end. About the time De Soto was exploring the region east 
of the Mississippi, the region west of the great river was being 
explored by Coronado. This gold-hunter had heard from 
Indians of the Seven Cities of Cibola, mythical cities of fabu- 
lous wealth, and in 1540 he had set out from Mexico to find 
them and to enrich himself with their treasures. He traversed 
what is now New Mexico and pushed eastward as far as the 
plains of what is now Kansas, but he found no wonderful cities 
and he found no gold. 

Though these adventurers found no gold, they greatly en- 
riched geographical knowledge and widely extended the Span- 
ish power in the New World. By virtue of the explorations 
made by Ponce de Leon, De Soto, and Coronado, Spain laid 
claim to a large part of North America, but she did not at 
once follow up her claims with actual settlement. She found 
that riches lay at the South rather than at the North ; so she 
neglected North America and gave her attention to the south- 
ern parts of the New World. Here the Spanish gold-hunters 
were successful beyond the dreams of avarice. In 15 19 Cor- 
tez conquered Mexico and about ten years later Pizarro over- 
ran Peru. These men became masters of untold wealth and 



THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN 29 

their conquests made Spain not only the richest nation in the 
world but also the mistress of Mexico, Central America, the 
greater part of South America, and the greater part of North 
America. Indeed, by the middle of the sixteenth century 
Spain was the virtual possessor of every foot of the western 
world from Patagonia to Labrador, excepting only Brazil, 
which belonged to Portugal. 

15. THE FISHERMEN OF FRANCE. 
But Spain could not hope to hold the New World without The 

Fisheries 

a struggle ; other nations were bound to come forward and of 
dispute her claims. France was the first to give trouble. found- 
While Spaniards were exploiting the southern part of Amer- 
ica for its gold. Frenchmen were exploiting the northern part 
for its fish. When Cabot returned from his voyage he re- 
ported that the waters of the newly-found region teemed with 
fish, and the report went out that in the " new-found-land " 
there was a great abundance of cod and that the salmon there 
were as large as seals. This was good news for Europe, 
for inasmuch as all Christendom was Catholic and the fast 
days in a year numbered nearly one hundred and fifty the de- The 
mand for fish was very great. In several countries it was for 
the law that on fast-days only fish should be eaten and heavy 
fines were imposed on all persons who zvould eat flesh on 
fish-days. In England fishing was encouraged for the sake 
of the navy and additional fast-days were established, not 
from a religious motive, but for the expressed purpose of in- 
creasing the consumption of fish. 

The first fishermen to follow in the wake of Cabot went out, ^he 
not from England, but from the ports of Dieppe and St. Malo me^n^'^" 
in France. As early as 1504 fishermen from these towns pr^ce 
went to Newfoundland and they found the fishing so good 
that they returned again and again. By 1522 there had been 
built along the coast of Newfoundland as many as forty or 
fifty huts for the accommodation of fishermen. These rude 
fishermen's huts were perhaps the first structures erected by 
white men in North America. Thus the French at a very 



30 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



early date not only made good use of the fishing grounds ot 
North America, but also did something in the way of establish- 
ing settlements on land. 

i6. THE CLASH BETWEEN SPAIN AND FRANCE. 

When the fishermen of Dieppe and St. Malo had once shown 
Frenchmen the way to the New World it was not long before 
France began to think of doing something more in America 
than merely catching fish. In 1524 Francis I, King of 
France and an arch enemy of Spain, sent out Giovanni Vcr- 
razano, a Florentine navigator, " to discover new lands by the 
ocean " and to claim them in the name of France — an ex- 
pedition made in utter disregard of the claims of Spain. In- 
deed, France flatly denied the validity of these claims and 
asked Charles V of Spain by what right he and the King 
of Portugal had claimed to own the earth. Had Father 
Adam made them his sole heirs, and would he produce a copy 
of the will? Verrazano first reached that part of the Ameri- 
can coast now known as the Carolinas. Sailing south for 
some distance he then turned his ships and skirted the coast 
as far as Newfoundland, entering New York Bay and Nar- 
ragansett Bay on his way. 

Ten years after the voyage of Verrazano, Jacques Car- 
tier, a sailor and fisherman of St. Malo, was sent out by 
France to find a passage to China by a northwest route. 
Cartier passed around Newfoundland to the north, sailed 
southward through the Strait of Belle Isle, explored the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, and returned to France. The next year he 
sailed again to the St. Lawrence region and made his way 
up the St. Lawrence River as far as Montreal Cartier found 
the region " as fair as was ever seen." The country, he said, 
was full of all sorts of goodly trees : oaks, elms, cedars, firs, 
willows ; the forests were full of all sorts of fur-bearing ani- 
mals: hares, martens, foxes, beavers, otters; and the rivers 
were " the plentifullest of fish that any man ever hath seen 
or heard of," The second voyage of Cartier was followed by 
an attempt to establish (in 1540) a French colony on the 



THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN 



31 



banks of the St. Lawrence, but disease soon swept away most 
of the colonists and the colony was broken up. 

In 1562 another attempt was made to plant a French col- Ribauit 
ony in America. In that year Jean Ribault, a mariner of 
Dieppe, sailed to the Florida coast, — Florida, according to 
Spanish notions, extended from Mexico to Newfoundland, — 
and planted a colony of thirty men at a place which he called 
Port Royal, near the present city of Beaufort. The colony 
was on soil which had been explored and claimed by Spain 
(p. 2y), but Ribault took possession of the place in the 
name of the King of France just as if Spain had no right 
to the place whatever. After building a fort, Ribault sailed 
back to France with the plan of bringing more men out to 
the colony. But the little settlement did not prosper. Be- 
fore Ribault could return it had suffered heavily by lawless- 
ness and famine and the few survivors had been picked up by 
an English vessel and carried to Europe. 

In ic;64 Laudonniere, a French ofificer who had been with Laudon- 

^ . mere 

Ribault on his voyage, planted another colony on the Florida 
coast. This time the settlement was made at the mouth of 
the St. Johns River on a 



spot " so fair that melan- 
choly itself could not but 
change to humor as it 
gazed." But Fort Caro- 
lina, as this colony was 
called, fared almost as 
badly as Port Royal, and 
the colonists were on the 
point of ret-urning to 
France when Ribault ar- 




Fort Carolina. 



rived with seven ships laden with supplies, bringing several 
hundred new colonists. 

xA.bout a wefk after Ribault's arrival, Pedro Menendez, in ^^^^"^'"^^ 
command of a large force of men and a well-equipped Span- Jl^H^' 
ish fleet, appeared off the mouth of the St. Johns. Menen- 
dez came under the auspices of the King of Spain with the 



32 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Hugue- 
nots 



The 
Result 
of the 
Clash 



St. Augus- 
tine 



avowed purpose of destroying the French colony. In the 
mind of the Spanish commander and in the mind of the 
Spanish monarch also there were two good reasons why the 
colony should be destroyed : first, the colonists were trespass- 
ing upon land which belonged to Spain ; and, second, they 
were enemies of the Catholic religion.^ We saw (p. 4) 
that in the fifteenth century Europe was solidly Catholic. By 
the time of Ribault and Menendez all this was changed. In 
the early part of the sixteenth century Martin Luther had 
started a movement against the authority of the Pope, and by 
the middle of the century the movement — known as the 
Reformation — had split the Catholic church in twain and 
had divided western Europe into two hostile religious camps. 
Catholics and Protestants. Now Ribault and his colonists 
belonged to the Protestant camp : they were Huguenots, 
as the French Protestants were called. So Menendez could 
proceed against these trespassing Huguenots with good 
will, for he was devoted to the interests of his King and a 
most zealous champion of the Catholic faith. Therefore he 
pressed on with energy to the accomplishment of his purpose, 
and by the time he had finished his cruel task the colony had 
been wiped from the face of the earth. 

Thus France and Spain were the first nations to quarrel 
about the possession of territory in the New World, and, in 
the clash which followed, Spain came out a victor. After 
the failure of Laudonniere's colony the French made no fur- 
ther attempts to gain a foothold in the southern part of the 
Atlantic seaboard, and Spain was left in undisputed posses- 
sion of the coast from Florida to Labrador. Menendez built 
a fort (September 1565) which he called St. Augustine, 
thus laying the foundation of the oldest town in the United 
States. The fort stood on the lonely Florida coast as the only 
visilile sign of Spanish power. In 1586 the fort was sacked 



1 There was still another reason why the Spaniards would be likely to deal 
harshly with the French at Fort Carolina; they regarded the settlement as a nest 
of pirates. French cruisers about this time were in the habit of scouring the 
seas and capturing Spanish vessels. In 1555 Havana was plundered and burned 
by the French buccaneers, and many of its inhabitants were put to death. 



THE GOLD-HUNTERS OF SPAIN 33 

by a captain (Drake), who sailed under the flag of a nation 
that was gathering strength and power to contest with Spain 
and all other nations the mastery of the American coast. 
This rising nation was England. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Outline the achievements of Spain in America between 1492 and 
1580: Bourne, 190-201. 

2. Balboa: Halsey I, 74-81; Bourne, 108-112. 

3. Describe the system of commerce which was established between 
Spain and her American colonies : Bourne, 282-298. 

4. Verrazano's voyage along the Atlantic coast : Hart I, 102-107 ; 
Halsey I, 92-103. 

5. Give an account of the destruction of Ribault's colony basing it 
upon the account given by Mendoza, the chaplain of the expedition : 
Halsey II, 13-22; also give an account of the destruction of this colony, 
following Doyle: Halsey II, 3-12; also consult Bourne, 175-189; 
Parkman, 27-68. 

6. The Reformation : Adams, 416-442. 

7. The Spanish discovery of the Mississippi : Ogg, 8-44. 

8. Coronado's own account of his expedition : Halsey I, 134-136. 

9. The voyages of the Cortereal brothers : Bourne, 64-66. 

10. Who were the Incas? Give an account of the capture of Monte- 
zuma by Cortez. Locate the Seven Cities of Cibola. What was the 
origin of the name "Florida"? What contributions to explorations 
were made by the Italians? What was the origin of the word 
"Huguenot"? Describe the Spanish colonial policy. Relate the story 
of Cartier's discoveries, following Parkman (69-82). 

11. Dates for the chronological table: 1524, 1541, 1562, 1565. 

12. Special Reading. The second volume of Justin Winsor's Nar- 
rative and Critical History of America. Francis Parkman, Pioneers 
of France in the Neiv World. W. H. Woodward, The Expansion of 
the British Empire. 



V 

THE RISE OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

Throughout the first half of the sixteenth century and far into the 
second half, Spain was supreme in the New World, both on land 
and on sea, and could prevent any nation from making settlements on 
the American continent. Before the end of the century England had 
become the mistress of the seas and was free to plant colonies in 
America and elsewhere. How did England rise to this place of 
power? What immediate use did she make of her power to plant 
colonies ? 

17. ENGLAND PUSHES OUT UPON THE SEAS. 

The Fishermen showed France the way to the New World, 

men of and it was fishermen also who showed Englishmen the way, 
although the fishermen of England began to go out to the 
American fisheries much later than those who went out from 
France. In 1527 there were along the coast of Newfound- 
land twelve fishing-vessels from France and only one from 
England. But about this time England began to give serious 
attention to the western fisheries. In 1536 a Mr. Hore of 
London attempted to found a colony on the coast of New- 
foundland, but the venture ended in failure. Twelve years 
later the English Parliament passed a measure — the first 
English statute relating to America — providing that all the 
inhabitants of England should be allowed to fish in the New- 
foundland waters free of any tax or charge. During these 
years the interest of England in the fisheries of the West was 
all the time increasing and was causing Englishmen to look 
to the New World as a place for the extension of the Eng- 
lish power 

Why did not Englishmen look to the New World sooner? 
Why did they allow so many years to slip by without at- 

34 



RISE OF ENGLAND IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY 35 

tempting to take possession of the continent discovered by England 

Cabot and claimed as iheir own? Because England at the ward 

Nation 
opening of the sixteenth century was a weak and backward 

nation. Her population was small (p. 2), her commerce 
and industries were unimportant, her resources in general 
were limited. Especially was she weak on the seas, the very 
place where she would have to be strong if she should dare 
to defy the power of Spain and undertake to plant her colo- 
nies in America. 

But while England was neglecting America she was in the England's 

° . ... Growth 

meantime growing stronger as a nation. Her industries 
were increasing, her commerce w-as expanding, her middle 
class was growing rapidly in wealth and in numbers. Above 
all, she was adding strength to her navy. Henry VHI, who has 
been called the father of the English navy, encouraged ship- England's 
building in every way he could, and during his reign (1509- 
1547) ships were built larger and stronger and were armed 
with heavier guns. And more important still, the ships were 
manned with better crews, for the fisheries of Newfoundland 
proved to be the best of schools for the making of good sail- 
ors. On the rough voyages across the ocean to the fishing- 
grounds and in the hard conditions of the fisherman's life 
there was trained a race of bold and hardy seamen to whom 
" no land was uninhabitable and no sea unnavigable." 

This fresh spirit of maritime adventure first showed it- North- 
self in voyages which were made to find a shorter route from p^^s*sage 
Europe to the east coast of Asia, a search begun by Columbus 
and not wholly discontinued until far into the nineteenth 
century. In 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby undertook to reach 
China by a northeast route. He sailed around the north coast 
of Norway into the Arctic ocean, but was lost amid the ice- 
bergs of the polar seas. Later began the long search for the 
northwest passage to Asia. In 1576 Martin Frobisher sailed North- 
to find this passage and reached the inlet on the American passage 
coast which he called Frobisher Strait, and which he believed 
was a passage to the Pacific. He took back to England some 
samples of black-stone which were thought to contain gold 



36 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



John 
Hawkins 



The 

Slave 

Trade 



Spain's 
Monopoly 
in the 
West 
Indies 



but which were really worthless. Still, the stones at first de- 
ceived even the gold-refiners of London, and the hope of 
finding the precious metal in the Arctic lands led Frobisher 
to make other voyages to the ice-bound coast. But no gold 
was found and the northwest passage remained a will-of-the- 
wisp to lure English sailors to their destruction. 

i8. THE CLASH BETWEEN SPAIN AND ENGLAND. 

The voyages of discovery and exploration at the North were 
matched at the South by voyages made for trade and for 
plunder. In 1562 John Hawkins, a seaman of Devonshire, 
England, sailed from the Guinea coast to the West Indies 
with a cargo of negroes who had been captured in the wilds 
of Africa. The negroes were sold as slaves to Spanish set- 
tlers in Haiti. In the act of taking the negroes from their 
native soil and selling theni into slavery Hawkins saw no 
wrong whatever. Indeed he rather felt that Providence 
smiled with favor upon the business of the slave-trade. Once 
he was attacked by some negroes whom he was trying to en- 
slave and he barely escaped with his life. When writing of 
this incident he piously reflected " that God worketh all things 
for the best and by Him we escaped without danger." Nor 
was the conscience of Hawkins any worse than the conscience 
of Christendom at large ; in no country was the voice of 
public opinion raised against negro slavery. Hawkins 
found the profits on the first cargo of slaves so great that 
he was encouraged to make other voyages and bring over 
more slaves. 

The voyages of Hawkins marked the beginning of the Eng- 
lish traffic in slaves and it also marked the beginning of one 
of the most momentous conflicts in the history of the world. 
Spain, desh'ing all the trade of the West Indies for her- 
self, regarded men like Hawkins as " pirates, rovers and 
thieves." So, in 1570, in order to preserve completely his 
monopoly, Philip II, the King of Spain, forbade outsiders 
to trade in the West Indies on pain of death. This decree, 
which meant that foreigners trading in the West Indies would 



RISE OF ENGLAND IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



Z7 




Queen Elizabeth. 



suffer the pirate's fate, was a heavy blow to Englishmen who 
had tasted of the forbidden trade. England and Spain at Hostility 
this time pretended to be at peace with each other, but in spainand 
reality they were at each other's throats. The people of Eng- °^ ^ 
land, like the people of most of the 
countries of western Europe, were 
divided into Catholics and Protes- 
tants Philip II was the warm 
friend of the Catholics and the 
bitter foe of the Protestants. It 
was thought that Philip had it in 
his mind to crush the Protestant 
party in England and dethrone 
Queen Elizabeth, who was a 
Protestant. Elizabeth therefore 
distrusted Philip profoundly and 

was only too glad to take the side of her merchants. She did 
not declare open war against Spain, but she let loose in the 
West Indies a swarm of English buccaneers who ruthlessly 
plundered the Spanish coasts and robbed Spanish vessels and 
thus " touched the King of Spain in the apple of his eye, for 

they took away the treasure which is 
the sinew of war." 

The leader of these English buc- sir 
/caneers was Francis Drake. This Drake 
greatest of all English seamen hated 
Spain with his whole heart and de- 
voted his whole life to inflicting 
injury upon the Spanish race. In 
the pursuit of his vengeance Drake 
was relentless, being held back 
neither by twinges of conscience, 
nor by fear, nor by bodily pain. 
Once while sacking a town in the West Indies he received a 
wound which caused him to bleed profusely. His men wished 
him to retire to his ship, but he went on with his work of 
pillage. Having occasion to guard a door where the treasure 




Sir Francis Drake. 



38 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Drake's 
Voyage 
Around 
the World 



The 

Invincible 

Armada 



was he stood at his post while his wound bled so profusely that 
a pool of blood formed at his feet. This terrible corsair — the 
Dragon, the Spanish called him, playing- on his name — not 
only plundered the West Indies, but struck Spain on the west- 
ern coast of South America. In September 1577, setting sail 
from Plymouth in England he began his famous voyage on 
which he became " the pioneer of England in the Pacific " 
and with wiiich he " put a girdle round the world." Coasting 
along the east main of South America and passing through the 
Strait of Magellan, he swept up the western shore of South 
America and took the seaports of Chili and Peru. Here he 
carried away treasure in jewels and silver amounting to more 
than £1,000,000. From Peru he sailed north as far as Cali- 
fornia and Oregon, skirting the coast until he came to the 48th 
parallel. Then he turned to the west and sped homeward by 
the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Plymouth in November, 
1580. Queen Elizabeth had secretly helped Drake to make the 
great voyage, so when the freebooter returned she received him 
with favor and placed in her crown one of the jewels which 
had been taken as plunder. The Spanish ambassador to 
the English court protested and threatened that if such out- 
rages did not cease " matters would come to the cannon." 

And soon matters did come to the cannon. In 1588 Philip 
II began to collect a large army and prepare an immense fleet 
for the invasion of England and its complete subjugation. 
Elizabeth and her statesmen made every effort for defense and 
when the great fleet of Philip — the Invincible Armada — 
sailed into the English channel it met the full strength of 
the English navy under the command of Lord Charles How- 
ard of Effingham. The English felt they were fighting for 
their honor and for their firesides and they went at the Spanish 
in a life-and-death struggle. Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher 
were present and joined in the battle. Catholics and Protes- 
tants alike rallied to the defense of England. The battle ended 
in a tremendous victory for Drake and his companions. Many 
of the Spanish ships were sunk and many that escaped were 
soon destroyed by a terrible storm. The naval strength of 



RISE OF ENGLAND IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY 39 

Spain was completely shattered. This battle was one of the 
decisive struggles of history and the greatest event in the life 
of the English nation. The defeat of the Armada led rapidly 
to the downfall of Spain and gave England a place among the 
foremost nations of the world. 

19. ENGLAND'S FIRST EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION. 
At the time that Drake and his " sea-dogs " were plunder- Sir Hum- 

. . phrey 

ing the West Indies and South America and sinking the Gilbert 
ships of Spain wherever they could find them, other English- 
men, ignoring the claims of Spain and defying her power, 
were going out to America and taking actual possession of 
the land. In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, "first of the Eng- 
lish nation that carried people to erect an habitation and gov- 
ernment in those northerly countries of America," received 
from Queen Elizabeth a patent for establishing a colony in 
North America. The first effort of Gilbert under his patent 
was a failure, but in 1583 he succeeded in landing a body of 
settlers on the coast of Newfoundland. He took possession 
of the island in the name of the queen and thus " signified 
unto all men that from that time forward they should take 
the same land as a territory appertaining and belonging to 
the Queen of England." Gilbert on his return voyage passed 
to a watery grave, but he had won for himself imperishable 
fame, for his colony was the corner-stone of the British power 
in the western world. 

The work begun by Gilbert was carried forward by his Amidas 
half brother. Sir Walter Raleigh, the greatest of names con- Bariow 
nected with the history of English colonization. In 1584, 
Raleigh sent out two sea-captains, Amidas and Barlow, to 
explore the American coast toward the south. These explor- 
ers touched the shore of what is now North Carolina and 
took back a report of the country that was full of hope and 
promise. " We smelt," they said, " so sweet and strong a 
smell as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden 
abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers. We found 
the people, the Indians, the most gentle, loving, and faithful. 



40 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



void of all guile and treason and such as live after the man- 
ner of the golden age." For this earthly paradise the Queen 
herself suggested the name of Virginia. Raleigh at once 
(1585) sent out about a hundred men under Ralph Lane to 
found a colony on the Virginia coast. Lane made a settle- 
ment at Roanoke Island, but he and his men did not know 
how to live amid the primitive conditions of a barbarous land. 
Virginia was not such a great paradise after all, nor were the 
Indians so gentle and loving as they were reported to be. 
Misfortune overtook the settlement, and when Drake, in 1586, 
stopped at the island on one of his homeward voyages the 
settlers persuaded him to carry them one and all home with 
him to England. So Raleigh's first attempt at colonization 
failed. But he was not discouraged. In 1587 he fitted out a 
second colony of 150 persons, among whom were seventeen 
women. This colony was placed under the control of John 
White, who was an artist as well as an adventurer. White 
planted his colony at Roanoke on the site of the settlement 
abandoned by Lane. He remained with his settlers for a 
time and then returned to England for more colonists and 
fresh supplies of food. He left behind him a daughter, 
Eleanor Dare, and a new-born grandchild, Mrginia Dare, 

the first child born of English par- 
ents on American soil. When 
White reached England he found 
Raleigh and Lane and other pow- 
erful friends of the Virginia 
movement busy in defending the 
country against the designs of 
Philip. So, the colony in Vir- 
ginia was left for a while to take 
care of itself. White returned to 
Roanoke in 1591, but the island 
was deserted ; not a trace of the 
colony could be found. Raleigh 
sent out ships again and again to find his lost colonists, but the 
search was vain. There was a tradition that part of the 




Sir Walter Raleigh. 



RISE OF ENGLAND IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY 41 

colonists were slain by the Indians and that those who es- 
caped were adopted into the neighboring tribes, but the tradi- 
tion is hardly more than conjecture. 

Raleigh could now go no further with his plans for colon- 
ization. Enemies began to pursue him and at last he was 
sent (in 1618) to the scaffold on a false charge of treason. 
His efforts toward colonization failed because his country- 
men did not yet know how to found a colony, how to live 
in a wilderness. But they were to learn this art in good 
time. British colonies were to be planted not only in America, 
but in all parts of the world for " wherever thought wanders, 
eyes turn or footsteps are directed throughout the earthly 
universe the flag of Britain, the emblem of sovereignty, is not 
far distant." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The English seamen: Channing I, 115-142, 

2. Give an account of Drake's voyage around the world as told by 
one of his companions : Hart I, 81-88. 

3. Drake's visit to California: Halsey I, 156-167. 

4. Slavery in the West Indies: Halsey II, 70-74; Bourne, 271-280. 

5. Describe the England of Elizabeth : Green, 392-394. 

6. Prepare a character sketch of Queen Elizabeth : Green, 369-379. 

7. The Reformation in England; the Protestants: Green, 349-360. 

8. Describe the social conditions that prevailed in England about 
the end of the sixteenth century: Hart I, 145-152. 

9. The Armada : Green, 405-420. 

10. Dates for chronological table: 15S0, 1583, 1587, 1588. 

11. Describe piracy as it existed in the sixteenth century. Tell 
in the class two anecdotes relating to Sir Walter Raleigh. Give an 
account of the introduction of tobacco and potatoes into Great 
Britain from America. What in your opinion was the fate of the 
lost colony at Roanoke? Trace the route followed by Drake in his 
voyage around the world. Give reasons why the defeat of the Ar- 
mada was of vital consequence to England. 

12. Special Reading. E. J. Payne, Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen 
J. A. Doyle, English Colonies in America, Vol. I, i-ioi. George Ban- 
croft, History of the United States, Vol. I, 60-83. 



VI 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH, THE FRENCH, AND 

THE DUTCH 

Now that the navy of Spain was gone, the Atlantic seaboard from 
the St. Johns River in Florida to the St. Lawrence was free to be oc- 
cupied by any nation that would seize upon the land and hold it. 
The maritime countries of Europe saw their opportunity and early in 
the seventeenth century three nations, England, France, and Holland, 
almost at the same moment sprang forward to secure a permanent 
foothold on the American continent. 



The 

Surplus 
of 
Labor 



The 

Surplus 
of 
Capital 



20. THE COMLNG OF THE ENGLISH; VIRGINIA. 

In the race for empire in North America, England led 
the way. Why at the opening of the seventeenth century 
was England eager to plant colonies in America? In the first 
place there was at this time in England a great deal of dis- 
content among the people. Thousands of able-bodied men 
were unable to earn a living. For a long time landholders 
had been giving their lands over to the pasturing of sheep 
rather than to the raising of crops. The price of wool was 
very liigh and farmers found by experience that " the foot 
of the sheep turned the sand into gold." But the change from 
a system of tillage to a system of pasturage took away the 
employment of the men who worked on the farms. These 
unemployed laborers found their way in large numbers to 
the cities, where they were often forced to live in idleness 
and beggary. So, by the end of Elizabeth's reign (1603) 
there was a large unemployed class that was only too will- 
ing to go to America in order to escape poverty and suffer- 
ing at home. 

Again, while the poor were thus growing poorer the rich 
were growing richer. By 1600 there was in England for the 

42 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 43 

first time in its history a class of bankers and capitalists who 
had money to invest in new enterprises. This was highly 
favorable to schemes of colonization, for it required large sums 
of money to fit out a colony with needed supplies, transport 
it to a far-ofif land, and support it until it could support itself. 
A third spur to colonization was the hope that by means The 

Surplus 

of her colonies England would be able to increase her trade, of 

. . , ManufaC' 

In his book, " A Discourse on Western Plantmg," Richard tures 
Hakluyt tells the queen (in 1584) that if she will plant col- 
onies in the West, England in a short time will be selling 
as much clothing in America as she ever sold in the Nether- 
lands, " and in tyme moche more." English wares, it was 
thought, could be exchanged in the colonies for raw material, 
for lumber and iron and copper, and England would no 
longer be compelled to buy these things at a high price from 
the countries of Europe. England was becoming a great in- 
dustrial nation and was expanding its commerce in every 
direction. So when the seventeenth century opened, condi- 
tions in England were extremely favorable to colonization : 
hordes of laborers were seeking employment ; a surplus of 
capital was seeking investment in new enterprises ; and an 
expanding industry was seeking a market in foreign parts. 

The first permanent colony planted by the English and The 
the germ of the United States of to-day was a business venture. Grant 
In 1606 a company of prosperous and prominent Englishmen 
obtained from King James I permission to plant colonies ^ on 
the American coast between the 34th and 45th parallels of 
north latitude or between Cape Fear River and Halifax. 
This vast stretch of territory, called Virginia, was to be taken 
possession of and exploited by two groups of adventurers, 
the Plymouth Company and the London Company. The 
Plymouth Company was to plant its first colony between the 
41st and 45th parallels while the London Company was to 
plant between the 34th and 38th parallels. The zone between 

1 Among other English companies organized about this time for colonization 
and trade was the great East India Company, which received its charter in 1600. 
This company was the agency by means of which the power of England was 
established in the Far East. 



44 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



parallels 38 and 41 was to 1)C open to settlement by either 
company. The land granted to each company extended one 
hundred miles inland. Here was a definite claim by an English 
king to a large and most desirable portion of the American 
continent. The Spanish ambassador in England protested 
against the planting of the colony on the ground that James 
was giving away land that belonged to Spain, but the protest 
was disregarded. 

Each company promptly began the work of colonization. 
The Plymouth Company at once planted on the coast of 
Maine a short-lived colony the history of which will be given 

in another place (p. 
56). The London 
Company sent out 
a colony of 120 
persons, 104 of 
whom reached the 
Capes at the en- 
trance of the Ches- 
apeake Bay at day- 
light on May 6, 
1607. The colo- 
nists were en- 
tranced at the sight 
of the fair mead- 
ows and tall trees, 
but later in the day 
their fears were excited when they saw " savages creeping on 
all fours from the hills like bears, with their bows in their 
mouths." Ascending a river which they called the James, the 
colonists landed at a small peninsula and began the building 
of a town which they called Jamestown. Unfortunately the 
I^lace selected for a settlement was extremely unhealthy, and 
by September ( 1607) one-half of the settlers had died. Those 
who survived were idle and incapable and wholly unfit for 
pioneer life. Most of them were unaccustomed to manual 
labor. At one time the colony consisted of one mason, one 




Jamestown and vicinity. 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 45 

blacksmith, four carpenters, fifty-two " gentlemen," and a bar- 
ber! In 1608 additional colonists to the number of nearly 
200 were brought over, but these also were chiefly persons 
who would not or could not perform hard labor. 

How was this motley collection of isolated Englishmen oovem- 

■' ment 

to be governed ? The government of the colony was planned 
by King James himself. Supreme authority was placed in 
the hands of a general council which was to reside in England. 
This general council was appointed by the king and was 
directed by his instructions. A second council, also appointed 
by the king and subject to his instructions, was to reside 
in the colony and have the direct management of colonial 
affairs. Thus the government was so planned that all power 
flowed from the king. The colonists, however, were to 
have the rights and privileges of English subjects. Jury 
trial was guaranteed and all ordinances made by the resident 
or colonial council were to be " consonant to the laws of 
England." 

What were the business features of this colonial venture? Business 
The land of the colony was to be owned by the company which 
secured the charter. The business affairs of the colony were 
to be conducted by the chosen agents of the company. The 
colonists themselves, even when they w^ere stockholding mem- 
bers of the company, were forced to work. Each able-bodied 
man had to work at the task assigned him and the products 
of the labor of all were to be thrown into a common stock for 
five years. Out of this common stock the colonists were to 
be fed and supported. If after the needs of the settlers were 
supplied there should be a surplus, this was to be sent to 
England in the vessels of the company and sold for the 
benefit of the merchant adventurers who risked their capital 
in the enterprise. The colony, therefore, was planted primarily 
not for the benefit of those who went over the seas but for 
the benefit of those who remained at home. 

It turned out that neither the form of government nor the captain 
business arrangements were satisfactory. The first resident smith 
or colonial council was soon torn asunder by faction and 



46 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



before many months had passed its authority had completely 
vanished. At a moment when all was confusion and chaos 
and when it seemed that the Jamestown colonists would suffer 
the same fate that liad o\ertaken the Roanoke settlers, Captain 
■ - ,. John Smith, a member of 

the council, came forward 
and by his good sense and 
energy saved the colony 
from the impending ruin. 
The greatest drawback in 
the colony was idleness. 
Since the men were fed out 
(jf the common stock there 
\ as no strong incentive to 
work. But Smith suc- 
ceeded in putting every- 
body to work, using a 
strong hand when neces- 
sary. He announced that 
all who woidd not work 
would be banished from the 
colony and set adrift in the 
great forest where they would be at the mercy of savages and 
wild beasts. This had a good effect, for the fine gentlemen and 
the idlers now began to chop wood and dig in the ground and 
help in the building of the houses. Smith also rendered a great 
service to the colony by visiting the Indians and establishing 
peaceful relations with them. He traded with them, giving 
them trinkets for the corn which the colonists needed so badly. 
In 1608 Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. 
He made the voyage not only in order to acc|uaint himself wdth 
the region bordering upon the bay, but for the further pur- 
pose of finding a waterway to China, for the colonists believed 
that the Pacific Ocean lay only a short distance from the 
Chesapeake. When some savages told Smith and his com- 
panions that the bay stretched to the South Sea the story was 
received as a piece of good news. Smith remained with the 




Captain John Smith. 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 47 

colonists until 1609, when he sailed for England, leaving be- 
hind him a fairly prosperous settlement. 

After Smith's departure the colony again fell upon evil The^ 
times and almost perished of starvation. In the summer of charter 
1 610 the starving colonists were on the point of leaving James- 
town and returning to England in a body when the company 
in London came to the rescue with fresh supplies of food. 
The company had recently (in 1609) secured a new charter for 
the government of the colony. Under this charter the gov- 
ernment of the colony was entrusted to a council of fifty 
members who were to hold their sessions in London. The 
colonial council already existing in Virginia was to be abolished. 
The council in London was to appoint a governor for the 
colony and he, in turn, was to appoint the colonial council 
and other necessary officers. Thus under the charter of 1609 
the company gained for itself many of the powers which 
before had been reserved for the king. It also secured a 
much larger grant of land, for under the new charter the 
territory of Virginia was to extend along the coast two hun- 
dred miles each way from Old Point Comfort and " up into 
the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest." ^ 
Moreover under the charter of 1609 greater inducements were 
offered to the settlers. Every planter, even the humblest, 
was promised his food and clothing and a hundred acres of 
land for himself and each member of his family. Lord Dela- 
ware was made " sole and absolute governor " under the new 
charter. It was his timely arrival with provisions (June 
1610) that saved the abandonment of Jamestown and the utter 
extinction of the colony. 

Delaware soon returned to England and for five years 

1 The vague expression " west and northwest " led to serious controversies 
respecting the boundaries of Virginia. " If the northwest line was drawn from 
the southern end of the 400 miles of coast, and another boundary line was drawn 
westward from the northern extremity of the coast, the domain thus limited 
would constitute a triangle of moderate area. If, on the other hand, one line 
was drawn westerly from the southern of the two points fixed in the coast and 
the remaining boundary was drawn northwesterly from the fixed point north of 
Old Point Comfort, the included territory would embrace a great part of the 
continent and extend from sea to sea. This was the construction given by 
Virginia to the language of the charter." Avery, Vol. II, p. 52. 



48 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Sir 

Thomas 

Dale 




Extent of Virginia according to one 
interpretation of the Charter of 
1609. 



(1611-1616) Virginia was 
ruled by Sir Thomas Dale. 
Dale's policy was to make 
the colony a permanent 
success and to return as 
much money as possible to 
the company in London, 
and he carried it out by 
ruling with a strong hand. 
He changed materially the 
plan by which the colonists 
had been fed out of the 
common store ; he made a 
luunber of the colonists 
tenants on the company's 
land, for which they either 
paid rent or rendered lim- 
ited services ; he gave a number of servants small tracts of 

land which they could work as gardens. He worked the labor- 
ers hard and if any attempted to run away he brought them 

back and punished them in 

the most cruel manner. 

When the Indians showed 

any disposition to be 

troublesome Dale marched 

against them in person and 

brought them to terms. 

In 161 3 he sent Samuel 

Argall to break up some 

settlements which the 

French were attempting to 

make in Acadia (Nova 

Scotia) and along the 

coast of Maine. Argall 

obeyed his orders to the 

letter and thus delivered 

the first British blow at 




Extent of Virginia according to an- 
other interpretation of the Charter 
of 1609. 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 49 

French colonization in America. The rule of Dale was harsh 
but it was energetic and it seemed to be what the colony needed. 
When he left Virginia in 1616 the colonists were glad to get 
rid of him, but they themselves did not care to follow him to 
England. The colony was now securely planted and there was 
no longer a thought of abandoning it. England had at last 
gained a foothold on the American continent. 

The thing that did most for early Virginia was tobacco. Tobacco 
In 1612 John Rolfe began the systematic cultivation of the 
tobacco plant and by 1616 he was able to ship to England a 
cargo of tobacco which was sold in London at a good price. 
Elere was the opportunity of the colonists. Soon every set- 
tler who had any land was raising tobacco, and planters began 
to grow rich from the profits of the weed. Since tobacco 
was so much more profitable than any other commodity the 
cultivation of food-products was neglected. The settlers 
would plant all their land in tobacco and trade their firearms 
to the Indians for food. The colonial authorities tried to 
compel the planters to raise more grain and less tobacco but 
their efforts in this direction did not meet with much success. 
As long as tobacco was the most profitable crop the planter 
would raise no other. 

The widespread cultivation of tobacco created a brisk de- slavery 
mand for laborers and there were not enough white men in Virginia 
the colonies to supply the demand. Indian labor was out 
of the question, for the Indians could not be tamed and they 
would not work. So the planters had recourse to the labor 
of negro servants. The first negroes who came to Virginia 
were twenty that were brought in a Dutch man-of-war in 
the year 1619. These negroes were held in a condition 
of temporary servitude as many whites were held.^ At first 

1 Negroes were not the only class held in temporary servitude. In Virginia a 
large class of servants consisted of persons who had been found guilty of com- 
mitting crime or taking part in rebellious movements. Another class consisted 
of "indented" servants who came to America under contract to work a certain 
number of years for the master who had advanced the money to pay for their 
passage across the ocean. Sometimes the term was as long as ten years, but 
often it was much shorter. When the term of service was completed the " in- 
dented " servant became a freeman. 



50 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Represen- 
tative 
Govern- 
ment 



An 
Indian 

Massacre 



The 
Loss 
of the 
Charter 



negroes were brought to Virginia only in small numbers but 
by 1661 the blacks had become so numerous that they pre- 
sented a labor problem which was solved by changing the 
negro's condition of temporary servitude to one of perpetual 
servitude. Thus negro slaverv was regularly established. 

The year 1619 marked the beginning of negro servitude in 
Virginia and also the beginning of representative government 
and civil liberty. In that year Sir George Yeardley, who 
came over as the governor of the colony, announced that the 
company in London had decided that the planters were hence- 
forth to have a voice in the governing of themselves. 
Yeardley provided for the calling of a general assembly that 
should consist of the governor and his council and two bur- 
gesses from each plantation (or agricultural settlement) 
" freely elected by the inhabitants thereof." Delegates from 
eleven plantations were at once elected and the first assembly 
met (July 30, 1619) in the wooden church at Jamestown, 
The little legislature consisting of the governor, six coun- 
cilors, and the twenty-two burgesses, opened the session with 
prayer and began to make laws for the government of the 
colony. The proceedings of this assembly were the begin- 
nings of representative government in the New World. 

The colony was now fairly firm on its feet and was slowly 
growing in wealth and population. In 1623, however, it 
suffered a serious setback. In that year the Indians fell 
upon the colonists and in a single hour cut down several 
hundred men, women, and children. The colonists retaliated, 
punishing the savages so severely that many years passed 
before there was another Indian uprising. 

At the time the colonists were having so much trouble with 
the Indians the London Company was having trouble with 
the king. James, having come to believe that Virginia should 
be placed under his direct control, decided to deprive the 
company of its charter. The company resisted, but in vain. 
In 1624 its charter was abolished and Virginia passed under 
the immediate control of the king; that is, it became a roycd 
province. 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 51 

James was preparing a new form of government for this Virginia 
colony but he died (in 1625) before the plan was finished, commu- 
His son and successor, Charles I, dealt with the colony in 
a liberal and friendly manner. He retained for himself the 
power of appointing the colonial governors and the colonial 
council, but he allowed the colony to have its own assembly 
and govern itself by its own laws. Upon the whole the change 
in government was favorable to the colony, for under this 
new order of things Virginia was a political community ; it 
was no longer a mere group of distant colonists laboring for 
the benefit of a trading-corporation in London. 

With the downfall of the London Company (1624) the first Eesuits 
chapter of Virginia history comes to an end. The company 
during the sixteen years of its existence had spent about 
£200,000 (or about $5,000,000 in our money of to-day) 
and had sent over about 14,000 colonists. The company lost 
heavily on its investment and a vast majority of the emi- 
grants perished. In 1625 the population of the colony was 
only about 1,200. The cost of the first colony in life was 
tremendous but it was a price that had to be paid, for the 
path to colonization is " whitened by the bones of the pioneer." 

21. THE COMING OF THE FRENCH; QUEBEC. 

With the weakening of the Spanish power upon the seas Quebeo 
Frenchmen as well as Englishmen began to plan for an empire 
in America. We saw that in 1613 the English destroyed a 
settlement which the French were trying to make on the coast 
of Maine. But several years before this event the French 
had already succeeded in making a permanent settlement in 
another part of North America. About the time Captain 
John Smith was exploring the Chesapeake and its tributaries 
with the vague hope of finding a waterway to China, Samuel 
Champlain, a French explorer, was in Canada also searching 
for a water route to the Far East. But Champlain had 
come to America to establish a colony as well as to make 
explorations ; in 1608 he planted the French flag on the bold 
headland of Quebec and there laid the foundations of a town 



52 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Cham- 
plain 



English 
and 
French 
Methods 
of 

Coloniza- 
tion. 
Con- 
trasted 

The 
Fur 
Trade 




The first house in Quebec. 



which was given tliat name. The colony was attacked by dis- 
ease and pestilence, and it had to struggle hard for its life, yet 

it survived, and Quebec became the 
corner-stone of the French power 
in Canada. 

l-'rom Quebec Champlain pushed 
his explorations in almost every di- 
rection. The great Frenchman 
was well fitted for pioneer work. 
" His person was rugged. His 
strength was equal to almost any physical task. His constitu- 
tion did not succumb to extremes either of cold or heat. His 
senses were keen and sharpened by experience. Flis spirit 
knew not what it was to falter when facing danger." In 1609 
he came into conflict with a band of Iroquois warriors and 
killed two of their number. The skirmish was most un- 
fortunate for the French, for it brought upon them the bitter 
and lasting enmity of the great Iroquois nation (p. 22). In 
1613 Champlain ascended the Ottawa River hoping that 
by this stream he would surely find the long-sought way to 
China. Of course he failed in his quest, but his explora- 
tions were all the time enlarging the claims of France and 
extending the boundaries of geographical knowledge. By 
161 5 Champlain had in person pushed west as far as the 
shores of Lake Huron, and before he died (in 1635) the 
French flag waved in the far-ofif wilds of Michigan and Wis- 
consin. 

The French power was thus spread over a vast extent of 
territory, but it was spread very thin. French dominion in 
America was not rooted in the earth. The English in Vir- 
ginia looked to the soil as the source of their fortunes, while 
the French in Canada avoided the hard labor of the farm and 
gave all their energies to the fur-trade. When Champlain 
returned from the Ottawa region in 1613 he found seven 
ships on the St. Lawrence trading in furs. This trade yielded 
large profits, but it was not an occupation that would lead 
to the building up of a strong and populous empire. Quebec 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH 53 

in 1629 — more than twenty years after its foundation — 
had but two permanently settled families. Its other inhabit- 
ants, only a few score in number, consisted of a floating popu- 
lation of officers, missionaries, hunters, and traders, and now 
and then a stray savage who had come to the settlement in 
search of food or strong drink. 

22. THE COMING OF THE DUTCH; NEW AMSTERDAM'. 

The English and the French had hardly landed in America Jf^^'^y 
° -' Hudson 

when the Dutch also appeared upon the scene. Almost at 
the very moment that Champlain was in the neighborhood of 
Ticonderoga fighting with the powerful Iroquois and making 
deadly enemies of them, Henry Hudson, an English navigator 
in the service of the Dutch, was a few miles away trading 
with the Iroquois and entertaining their chiefs " royally with g 
biscuit and grog ! " Hudson was in the employ of the Dutch 
East India Company, a powerful trading-corporation of Hol- 
land, the country which had just risen from obscurity to 
a commanding place in the world of commerce. The East 
India Company sent Hudson out to seek a passage to China 
by a northeast route but the captain soon turned the prow 
of his vessel, the Half Moon, toward the west and in Sep- 
tember 1609, he was inside Sandy Hook. Hudson was told 
by the natives that the broad stream which he saw flowing 
from the North came from the mountain ranges visible in the 
distance and he believed the waterway led to the Pacific. He 
ascended the river which bears his name to a point where the 
city of Troy now stands. Here the Half Moon ran aground 
and the baffled explorer was compelled to retrace his course. 
Before leaving the Hudson valley, however, he traded with 
the Indians and secured a good load of otter and beaver. 

Hudson took back to Europe a glowing report of the coun- New 
try he had explored and showed what an excellent place it \vas lands^"^ 
for carrying on a trade in furs. The Dutch were quick to take 
advantage of the fur-trade. In 1613 they began to build huts 
on Manhattan Island for the storage of furs. In 1619 an 
English captain when sailing by the island saw these huts and 



54 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



warned the settlers that they were trespassing upon English 
territory, but the Dutch did not heed the warning. In 1623 
the Dutch West India Company sent out colonists to make a 

permanent settlement in a 




New 
Amster- 
dam 



region which was then 
called New Netherlands 
and which was to include 
the territory out of which 
the four middle states 
(New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and Dela- 
ware) have been formed. 
When the Dutch vessel car- 
rying the colonists entered 
the harbor at the mouth of 
the Hudson they found a 
French vessel already there 
preparing to establish a col- 
ony. The Dutch gave no- 
tice that the country was 
theirs and that they would 
hold it against all comers. 
The French took the hint 
and withdrew. Meanwhile 
the English king was com- 
plaining because the Dutch 
were preparing to settle 
upon land which he had 
granted to the Plymouth 
\^-^ # ? '■' '.° L" Company (p. 44). 

I I l/f statute Miles '- -' ^ ^^ J 

I — ^ — il But the Dutch went on 

with their plans. Settle- 
ments were made at Fort 
Orange, where Albany now stands, at Lewes in Dela- 
ware and at Fort Nassau (now Gloucester, New Jer- 
sey) and on Manhattan Island. In 1626 this island was 
bought from the Indians by Peter Minuits, an agent of the 



Early settiements in New York and 
New Jersey. 



COMING OF ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH S5 

West India Company, for the sum of 6o guilders, or about 
$ioo of our present currency. The price was not paid in 
coin, for the Indians did not use stamped money; the island 
was paid for in cloth and trinkets. Soon after the purchase 
a stone fort was built at the southern end of the island and 
the settlement, which already numbered several hundred per- 
sons, was given the name of New Amsterdam. Thus the 
Dutch planted themselves in a region which was claimed by 
the English and which was looked upon with wistful eyes 
by the French. No wonder all three of these nations desired 
the Hudson country, for it was the best place for trade that 
could be found in all the Western Hemisphere. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Summarize the English claims to North America: Hart I, 
164-167. 

2. Motives for exploration and colonization : Bogart, 29-34. 

3. Give the history of the founding of Jamestown following the ac- 
count given by Captain John Smith : Halsey II, 49-62. 

4. Champlain's own account of his battle with the Iroquois on Lake 
Champlain: Halsey I, 179-185. 

5. The political institutions of France in the seventeenth century: 
Cheyncy, 1 14-120. 

6. The founding of Quebec : Parkman, 88-95. 

7. Dates for the chronological table : 1607, 1608, 1609, 1619, 1624. 

8. Summarize the chief events connected with early English, French, 
and Dutch colonization in America. 

9. Special Reading. John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors 
and The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. P. A. Bruce, Eco- 
nomic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. L. G. Tyler, 
England in America. Justin Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac. G. L. 
Beers, Origins of the British Colonial System. 



YII 
THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 

About the time the Virginia colony had taken root and was be- 
ginning to prosper, permanent settlements began to be made in New 
England. What led to the colonization of this region? What were 
the motives and purposes of the men who first came to New England? 
What colonies were planted there and what was their early history? 

23. THE BACKGROUND OF NEW ENGLAND COLONIZATION. 

Pring At the opening of the seventeenth century EngHsh fisher- 

wey- men began to learn that there was good fishing on the American 

coast south of Newfoundland. In 1603 Martin Pring visited 
the coast of Maine where he found the fishing excellent. 
In 1605 George Weymouth also went to Maine and in an 
account of his voyage declared that fisheries on the Maine 
coast would be more profitable than those on the coast of 
Newfoundland. 
Saga- These voyages and these glowing reports attracted the at- 

tention of English adventurers and led to plans for making 
settlements on the Maine coast. In 1607 one hundred and 
twenty colonists sent out by the Plymouth Company (p. 44) 
landed at the mouth of the Kennebec (or Sagadahoc) and be- 
gan the work of settlement. They built a fort, a church, a 
store-house, and several cabins. They also constructed a 
pinnace called the Virginia, the first seagoing vessel built 
by white men in North America. But the colonists became 
discontented and more than half of them returned to England 
in December. Those who remained through the winter ex- 
perienced such hardships and suflfering that they too became 
disheartened and in the spring of 1608 gladly embarked for 
home. " And that was the end of that northern colony upon 
the river Sagadahoc." 

S6 



dahoc 



THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 57 

The result of these voyages and attempts at colonization The 
was to develop English fisheries along the Maine coast. In nsheries 
16 14 Captain John Smith, the hero of Virginia, explored the 
coasts of what are now the States of Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, and Massachusetts and gave to the region the name 
New England. On this voyage Smith examined the fisheries 
along the New England coast and made the prediction that 
they would prove to be a source of untold wealth. He him- 
self on this voyage caught off the coast of Maine 47,000 
fish, 40,000 of which he dried and 7,000 of which he pickled. 
The profit of the voyage was $7,000. After this the New 
England fisheries became more attractive than ever, with the 
result that in a few years the huts of English fishermen were 
scattered all along the coast of Maine. Thus through the 
enterprise of fishermen the rivers and harbors of New Eng- 
land became familiar to English sailors and the resources of 
the country became known to English adventurers. By 1620 
New England was ready and waiting to be colonized by 
Englishmen. 

24. THE PILGRIMS: PLYMOUTH. 

Soon the colonists began to arrive. To understand why 
they came it will be necessary to take a glance at the religious 
conditions which prevailed in England at the time of their 
coming, for in the settlement of New England religion was 
a powerful and controlling force. "If a man," said Hig- 
ginson, " counts religion as being twelve and all other things 
as being thirteen he has not the true New England spirit." 

We saw (p. 32) that by 1550 Christians in England were The 
divided into two bodies. Catholics and Protestants. By the ushed" 
end of the sixteenth century the Protestants themselves were '^^""'^ 
divided into several groups. The great body of Protestants 
consisted of the members of the Established Church, or Church 
of England. This denomination, known also as the Episcopal 
Church, was the state church ; it was supported by the state ; 
its bishops received their offices and their powers from the 
state ; its liturgy and services were prescribed by state au- 



S8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



thority ; and its official head was the King (or Queen) ot 
England. 

Within the Episcopal Church there began to appear in the 
latter half of the sixteenth century many worshipers who were 
dissatisfied with the manner in which the afifairs of their 
church were conducted. Thinking that the forms and cere- 
monies of the Established Church resembled too closely the 
services held in Catholic churches, they desired a plainer and 
simpler form of worship ; thinking that the doctrine of the 
Established Church was being misstated and corrupted, they 
desired a pure doctrine. For the purity of Christian doctrine 
they looked to the I'ible and to no other source. Because these 
people wished to reform the church and purify it they were 
called Puritans. 

Among the Puritans there were some who flatly denied the 
authority of the Established Church and claimed the right 
to set up churches of their own, elect their own preachers, 
and worship in their own way. These people, because they 
separated themselves from the Established Church, were called 
Separatists or Independents. They ditTered from most Puri- 
tans in this : most Puritans wished to remain in the Church 
and reform it from within, while the Independents wished to 
withdraw from the Church altogether. 

Both Puritans and Independents were distasteful to those 
in authority and severe laws were passed against all who re- 
fused to conform to the rules of the Established Church. Any 
person who absolutely refused to attend the services of the 
Church or persuaded others from attending could be thrown 
into prison until he conformed. If imprisonment failed to 
bring conformity the dissenter could be driven into perpetual 
exile. James I was especially harsh in dealing with the non- 
conforming Puritans and Separatists. *' I will make them con- 
form themselves," he said in 1604, " or I will harry them, 
out of the land or else do worse." It was this persecution 
of Puritans and Independents that hastened the colonization 
of New England. 

The first permanent New England settlement was made by 



THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 59 

a group of Independents who, harried out of Nottinghamshire, The 
England, in 1608, had settled in the city of Leyden. Holland in 
was chosen as the place of refuge because it was the country 
in which religious freedom could be most fully enjoyed. But 
the Pilgrims — as this roving body of Independents was called 
• — were not content in Holland, They saw " that many of their 
children by the manifold temptations were drawn into evil 
examples and were getting the reins off their necks and 
departing from their parents." Moreover the Pilgrims were 
speaking the Dutch language and learning Dutch customs, and 
if they remained in Holland they would become out-and- 
out Dutchmen. This they did not wish to do. They still 
loved England and they wanted to remain Englishmen. So 
they decided to leave Holland. Accordingly, in July 1620, 
they bade that country farewell and started for America where 
they expected to find a permanent home. 

Permission to settle in America was given to the Pilgrims Business 
by James I, who said he " would connive with them, and not 
molest them, providing they carried themselves peaceably.'* 
The land upon which they were to settle was granted to them 
by the London Company (p. 43). The money necessary 
for planting the colony was furnished by some London mer- 
chants who entered into a partnership with the Pilgrims. 
The merchants were to hold stock in the enterprise on the 
basis of one share for each ten pounds of money contributed, 
and each colonist was entitled to one share of stock. For 
seven years all that was produced in the colony was to go 
into the common store, and during this time the colonists 
were to be supported out of the common store. At the end 
of the seven years all the property of tlie colony was to 
be divided among the merchants and the colonists, each per- 
son receiving an amount in proportion to the number of 
his shares. 

After leaving Holland the Pilgrims stopped at Southampton The 
where they made final arrangements for the long voyage that JAhe* 
was before them. On September i6th they embarked in the flower 
Mayilozver and spread sail for America. They were about 



6o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



one hundred in numl)er. It was their phm to settle within 
the territory of the London Company somewhere hetween the 
Hudson and the Delaware, that is, they were to settle upon 
the land claimed by the Dutch (p, 54). Rut when the sandy 
shores of Cape Cod were reached the Mayflower was steered 
into the harbor of what is now Provincetown. Here, on 
November it, 1620, the Pilgrims first set foot on American 
soil. The first landing place, however, was soon abandoned 
and a spot where the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, now 
stands was chosen as a place of permanent settlement. Here 
the Pilgrims went ashore on the 21st of December and began 
to build houses for a permanent settlement which they called 
Plymouth. 

The Pilgrims settled upon territory to which their charter ^ 
gave them no legal title and they were therefore wholly without 
power in respect to matters of government. So they found it 
necessary to provide a government for themselves. "While 
yet on board the Mayfloiver they entered into an agreement 
or compact which bound them to give their submission and 
obedience to all such laws as the general good of the colony 
might require. This agreement was signed by the whole body 
of men. This compact was the beginning of the New England 
democracy and the signing of the document was a most impor- 
tant event in the history of human liberty. " In the cabin of 
the Mayflower," says Bancroft, " humanity secured its rights 
and instituted a government on the basis of equal laws enacted 
by the people for the general good." 

As soon as the compact was signed John Carver was elected 
the first governor of the colony. Carver, however, lived only 
a few months. He was succeeded by William Bradford, who 
served the colony faithfully and well for many years. An- 
other leader of the colony was the preacher, William Brewster, 
whose helpfulness in spiritual matters was " the life and the 
stay of the plantation." Still another leader was the re- 

1 In 1621, the settlers received from the Council of New England — the new 
name of the old Plymouth Company — a grant of territory, but the boundaries of 
the grant were not clearly defined. 



THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 6l 

doubtable Miles Standish, a man of the type of Captain John 
Smith. Standish was the Plymouth fighter and his sword 
was drawn more than once in defense of the colony. His 
services were sometimes needed to put down the Indians, 
although the relations between the Pilgrims and the redmen 
were for the most part peaceful. 

It was the dead of winter wdien the Pilgrims landed and The 

rr • • 1 n r • Common 

for several months their suffermg was terrible. Before spring store 
was well open half of their number had perished. After a 
few winters of hardship, however, good times came and it 
was not many years before Plymouth was a thriving colony. 
At first all the products of the colony were thrown into the 
common store under a system of joint ownership, but this 
system was not satisfactory. " The younger men did not 
care to work so hard and found that they gained no more 
than the weak and aged ; nor were the married men pleased 
with the idea of their wives cooking, washing, and scouring 
for the bachelors." So the system of communal labor grad- 
ually broke down and by 1627, each settler was working for 
himself and depending upon his own labor. 

The colonists tilled the soil, raising chiefly corn and pump- occupa- 

tions 

kins, but they by no means relied wholly upon agriculture. 
While in Holland they had learned how to trade, and their com- 
mercial spirit soon showed itself in America. In 1623 they 
built a pinnace and sent it to the country south of them 
to get a cargo of furs from the Indians. Two years later 
the Pilgrims were selling corn to the Indians along the Ken- 
nebec and receiving furs in exchange. By 1631 they were 
carrying on a fur-trade with the Indians as far away as the 
region of the Connecticut River. Thus Plymouth besides be- 
ing an agricultural community was also a trading and seafar- 
ing community. 

At first the colony governed itself as a pure democracy ; Represen- 
all the freemen met in a primary meeting at Plymouth and Govem- 
attended personally to the public business. But by 1643 the 
colony consisted of nine " prim, clean, and comfortable towns," 
containing in all about 3,000 inhabitants. Pure democracy 



62 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



by this time had become impractical and a representative sys- 
tem bad been established. The affairs of the colony were at- 
tended to by a General Court which met at Plymouth and 
which consisted of delegates sent from the several towns. 
The General Court attended to the affairs that concerned the 
whole colony, while each town in a primary meeting of its 
freemen attended to the affairs that concerned only itself. 
The form of government which was developed in Plymouth 
was the form which was established in all the other New 
England colonies. Indeed it was at Plymouth that the founda- 
tions of Xew England were laid. 

25. THE PURITANS: MASSACHUSETTS. 

It was the Pilgrims who laid the foundations of New Eng- 
land, but the little Plymouth colony was destined to be swal- 
lowed up by one which soon arose not many miles away at 
the north — the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. This colony 
owed its existence to a grant made in 1629 by the council 
of New England — a new name for the old Plymouth Com- 
pany — of "all that part of New England which lies and 
extends between a great river there commonly called the 
Merrimac and a certain other river there called Charles River, 

])eing at the bottom of a certain 
bay there commonly called Massa- 
chusetts, and lying within the space 
of three English miles in the south 
part of said Charles River and also 
within the space of three English 
miles to the northward of the said 
river called Merrimac, throughout 
the main lands there from the At- 
lantic ... on the east part to the 
South Sea [the Pacific] on the 
west part." It will be observed 
that the grant ignored the presence 
of the Dutch on the Hudson and extended straight across 
the continent from ocean to ocean. 




John Winthrop. 

Second Governor of 
Massachusetts. 



THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 



63 



The first settlement under the grant was made at Naumkeag Saiem 
— afterwards called Salem — under the leadership of John 
Endicott, who came 
over in 1629 with 
about forty persons. 
But the active coloni- 
zation of Massachu- 
setts began in 1630 
when John Winthrop, 
the newly elected gov- 
ernor, landed with 
800 colonists, the 
largest body of emi- 
grants that had as vet 
left England for 
America. Born in 
1588 near Groton, 
England, Winthrop 
came to America in 
the prime of life and 
for twenty years was 
the leading spirit in 
Massachusetts, hav- 
ing been chosen gov- 
ernor of the colony Settlements around Massachusetts Bay. 

twelve times and having died in office in 1649. In his youth 
he cast his lot with the Puritans and he embodied in his char- 
acter the most conspicuous features of Puritanism. His na- 
ture was deeply spiritual and the precepts of the Bible guided 
him in every action of his life. He was stern, inflexible, un- winthrop 
compromising, and grievously intolerant in matters of re- 
ligion. His chief purpose in coming to America was to " help 
raise and support a particular church " — the Puritan church. 
When Winthrop reached Salem he found affairs there in such 
a sad plight that he decided to settle elsewhere. He chose the 
shores of what is now the Boston Harbor as the best place 
for the newcomers to land. Here the w^ork of settlement be- 




64 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Boetou 



The 

Great 
Migration 



Religious 
Persecu- 
tion 



Tyranny 
of 
Charles I 



gan and in a short time several towns were rising around Bos- 
ton Bay. The town of Boston was the central community 
and in 1630 it was made the capital of the colony. Vor two or 
three years the colony experienced the usual hardships of a 
new settlement in a wilderness, and settlers did not come over 
in great numbers. In 1633, however, the tide of emigration 
set in so strong that the population of the colony at once 
jumped to 4,000. In less than ten years the population of 
Massachusetts J>ay was over 16,000. This was greater than 
the population of all other British colonies in America put 
together. 

The settlers who came to Massachusetts during these years 
in such great numbers were Puritans. Many of them were rich, 
able, and well-educated men who when departing from Eng- 
land left the good things of the world behind them. They 
left their homes because they were no longer safe in England, 
for the harsh policy of James I against Puritans (p. 58) was 
being continued by his son Charles I. At the time Winthrop 
and his followers came to America Puritans were sufifering 
imprisonment, and having their ears cropped and their noses 
slit on account of their religious opinions. So persecution 
was one of the causes which drove the Puritans to Massa- 
chusetts. Another cause of their leaving was the despotic rule 
of the Stuart kings. James I had played the tyrant and 
Charles I seemed to the Puritans even a worse despot than 
his father. At the time of the great Puritan migration to 
Massachusetts, Charles was attempting to establish a personal 
government. He was ruling without a Parliament, he was 
taking money out of the pockets of his subjects in an un- 
lawful manner and he was throwing English citizens into jail 
without giving them a fair trial. " Thus in Church as in 
State the sky was black with signs of coming evil. . . . When 
Winthrop sailed, the storm had not yet broken but the first 
warning sounds were heard. Well might Englishmen long 
for a refuge where they might preserve their constitutional 
forms whose day seemed in England fo have passed away." 
(Doyle.) So when the Puritans left England they felt that 



THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND 65 

they were fleeing from political tyranny as well as from re- 
ligious persecution. 

The stockholders of the Massachusetts Company came to The 
America in person and brought with them their charter which dence^of" 
was issued directly by the King. The settlers of this colony chuset'ts 
therefore were not subject like those of Virginia to the con- 
trol of a company residing in England. Under their charter 
the colonists of Massachusetts established a colonial govern- 
ment which was quite independent of any other authority ex- 
cept the direct authority of the King and Parliament. Four 
times a year the freemen (the stockholders), the governor, 
and the assistants met at Boston as a General Court to attend 
to the public business of the colony. At first the General Court The 
was a primary meeting as at Plymouth, but with the increase in court 
population and the founding of new towns a representative 
system soon became necessary. By 1634 each town was send- 
ing to the General Court representatives elected by the free- 
men. 

No man, however, could be a freeman of the colony unless The 

Test of 

he was a member of some Puritan church. This rule ex- cmzen- 
cluded from a share in government all who would not pro- ^ ^^ 
fess a belief in certain church doctrines and it left the gov- 
ernment in the hands of men who believed that human affairs 
should be conducted in accordance with the words of Holy 
Writ. That is to say, the rule went far toward making Massa- 
chusetts a Bible commonwealth, a city of God, a Puritan 
theocracy. 

One of the most important duties of the General Court was The 
to establish new towns. This was usually done by granting ^"'^ 
a tract of unimproved and uncultivated land about six miles 
square to a group of settlers who wished to push out from 
the older towns and establish a new one. The land thus 
granted was a gift not to individuals but to the new com- 
munity considered as a local body politically known as 
a township or town. The land was then allotted to indi- 
vidual owners by the action of the town-meeting. Waste or 
unallotted land was held in common for the benefit of all. 



66 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

The town-meeting, a popular assembly, was a pure democ- 
racy consisting of all the citizens of the town who were 
entitled to vote. In the early days while government was 
getting under way town-meetings w-ere held with great fre- 
quency. In Boston in 1635 ten general town-meetings were 
held. But as the people found that they could not give so 
much time to public affairs, it became the custom to hold 
only one town-meeting in a year. At thi^ meeting town 
officers were elected, local representatives to the General Court 
w^ere chosen, taxes levied, and by-law's enacted relating to 
the common fields and pastures, to the town church — for 
every town had its Puritan church, — to the schools, to the 
roadways, to boundary lines, and to many other matters of 
local concern. No detail of the civil or religious life of 
the community was too small for the attention of the town- 
meeting. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Describe New England as it was before the Pilgrims landed, fol- 
lowing the description given by John Smith: Halsey II, 78-85. 

2. The Puritans in England: Cheyney, 216-227; Green, 462-464. 

3. Describe Puritanism as embodied in the bfe of John Milton: 
Green, 464-466. 

4. The Bible in English life in Puritan times: Green, 460-462. 

5. New England: Green, 505-514. 

6. Describe the proceedings of a New England town-meeting: 
Plart II, 214-220. 

7. Popular Government : ^ Forman, 9-15. 

8. Representative Government. Forman, 17-22. 

9. Dates for the chronological table : 1620, 1629. 

10. Special Reading. John Fiske, Beginnings of New England. Ed- 
ward Eggleston, The Transit of Civilization. Charles Francis Adams, 
Massachusetts, Its Historians and History. William Elliot Griffis, The 
Pilgrims in Their Three Homes — England, Holland, and America. 

1 For the convenience of schools in which Civics is not regularly taught refer- 
ences have been made throughout this text to the leading subjects of Civil 
Government. These references have been made at appropriate places with tiie 
Tiew of acquainting the pupil with the fundamental principles of our political 
system. If the work indicated is thoroughly done it will correlate the subjects ot 
History and Civics with the result that the history work will be greatly strength- 
ened. 



VIII 

THE EXPANSION OF MASSACHUSETTS; THE DE- 
VELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 

After the colony of Massachusetts Bay had been planted, the further 
colonization of New England was in the main simply an expansion of 
Massachusetts. What was the result of this expansion? What colonies' 
were the offshoots of Massachusetts and what was their early his- 
tory? What were the leading events in the development of New 
England ? 

26. NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

By the time the foundations of Massachusetts Bay were Laconia 
well laid the fishermen on the Piscataqua River were laying 
those of New Hampshire. In 1622 the council of New Eng- 
land (p. 62) granted to John Mason and Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges the province of Laconia, which was to comprise all 
the land between the Merrimac and Sagadahoc (Kennebec) 
Rivers, " extending back to the Great Lakes and to the rivers 
of Canada." In the following year Mason and Gorges sent 
out to Laconia some fishermen " and other people " in two 
divisions. One division landed on the shore of the Piscataqua 
River and established a fishing-station on the spot where 
Portsmouth now stands. The other division went eight miles 
further up the river and settled at Dover. 

In 1629 Mason and Gorges agreed to divide Laconia. The New 
wild region east of the Piscataqua was given to Gorges and fh^^' 
took the name of Maine. The still wilder region west of the 
river was given to Tvlason and was called New Hampshire. 
In 1638 John Wheelwright, a religious exile of Massachusetts, 
moved up into New Hampshire and made a settlement at 
Exeter, and about the same time a settlement was begun at 
Hampton. The four little towns. Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, 

67 



68 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



and Hampton, governed themselves in their own way until 
1643, when New Hampshire by the consent of the towns was 
annexed to Massachusetts. In 1691 New Hampshire was 
separated from IMassachusetts and was made a colony with 
a government of its own. In the same year Maine was given 
to Massachusetts and was known as the district of Maine. 



The 

Doctrines 

of 

Roger 

Williams 



His 

Banish- 
ment 



27. RHODE ISLAND. 

A religious exile of Massachusetts took a leading part in 
the settlement of New Hampshire and it was a religious 
exile also from Massachusetts who first made settlements in 
what is now Rhode Island. The founder of Rhode Island 
was Roger Williams, a brilliant, over-zealous, and " con- 
scientiously contentious " minister of the gospel, who set- 
tled at Salem (1631), and who by the character of his 
preaching soon became a source of great discomfort to the 
authorities of Massachusetts. Williams denied the right of 
the English king to grant land to anybody in North America, 
contending that the Indians were the sole owners of the 
land and that all titles to land should be held for them and for 
them alone. He also contended that the government should 
exercise no control in respect to religious matters. 

Such doctrines brought upon the preacher's head the dis- 
pleasure of the rulers of Massachusetts, and in October 1635, 
the General Court voted ** that whereas Mr. Roger Williams 
hath broached and divulged diverse new and dangerous 
opinions against the authority of the magistrates . . . and yet 
maintaineth the same without retraction, it is therefore ordered 
that tile said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction 
within six weeks, which if he neglect to perform it shall be 
lawful of the governor to send him out of the jurisdiction 
not to return any more without license from this Court." 
In the spring of 1636 when the General Court was upon 
the point of seizing the banished man and sending him to 
England, Williams fled, steering his course through a driving 
snow to a spot where the city of Providence now stands. Here 
having been joined by several persons he " began to build and 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 



69 



In Providence the church 

and 
State 



plant." In 1637 the householders of Mr. Williams' settle- 
ment entered into the following compact : " We whose names 
are hereunder, desirous to inhabit the town of Providence, 
do promise to subject ourselves in obedience to all such orders 
as shall be made for the public good by the major consent 
of the present inhabitants and others whom they shall admit 
unto them, only in civil things." In this compact we see the 
great idea for which Williams stood, namely, the separation separa- 
of church matters from state matters 
government was to have authority only in " civil things 
in respect to religious affairs it was to have no power what- 
ever. According to the teachings of Williams religion was 
a matter of personal, private, and individual concern. Gov- 
ernment, he thought, had no right to interfere with the re- 
ligious views of any person. " It hath fallen out sometimes," 
he said, " that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks 
may be embarked in one ship ; upon which supposal I affirm 
that all the liberty of conscience that I ever pleaded for, turns 
upon these two hinges: that none of the Papists, Protestants, 
Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or wor- 
ship nor compelled from [i. e. forcibly kept away from] their 
own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any." 

But Williams did 
not believe that this 
liberty meant license 
and lawlessness, for 
he goes on to say: 
" If any of the sea- 
men refvise to per- 
form their services or 
passengers to pay 
their freight, if any 
shall mutiny and rise 
up against their com- 
manders and officers ; 
I say, I never denied but in such cases the commander may 
iudge and punish such transgressors according to their deserts." 




Connecticut and Rhode Island. 



70 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Rhode 

Island and exileS 
Provi- 
dence 
Planta- 
tions 



The colony founded by Williams attracted other religious 
In 1638, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a gifted and earnest 
woman who had been banished from Massachusetts for " tra- 
ducing the ministers and their ministry " went with some fol- 
lowers to Rhode Island and founded the towns of Pocasset 
(near Pawtucket) and Newport. l""ive years later Samuel Gor- 
ton, also an exile from Massachusetts, founded the town of 
Warwick. In 1644 these settlements were united under a char- 
ter which Williams secured from the luiglish government. 
Later Charles II granted (1663) to the "Colony of Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantation " a new charter. This instru- 
ment gave the colonists of Rhode Island tlie religious freedom 
which they so much desired and it granted them the j^irivilege 
of electing their own officers and making their own laws. 



The 

Connecti- 
cut 
Valley 



The 

Beginning 
of the 
West- 
ward 
Move- 
ment 



28. CONNECTICUT. 

While the colony of Rhode Island was being planted along 
the shores of the Narragansett Bay, the colony of Connecticut, 
another offshoot of Massachusetts, was taking root on the 
banks of the Connecticut River.^ The charming and fertile 
valley through which this stream flowed was a prize for which 
both the English and the Dutch contended. The Dutch were 
the first to enter it and take possession, but they could not hold 
their ground, for in 1634 emigrants from Massachusetts began 
to settle in the valley, and in a few years the Dutch were 
crowded out. 

The settlement of Connecticut by the English began in 
earnest in 1636 when Thomas Hooker, the pastor of the church 
at Newtown (now Cambridge) moved with his entire congrega- 
tion to the banks of the Connecticut and founded the city of 
Hartford. This migration was due in part to a desire for the 
arable land of the valley, and in part to discontent with the 
illiberal rule of the Puritan theocracy. The movement was 
not one of individuals, but of an organized religious com- 

1 In 1 63 1 Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others obtained from the 
New England Company a tract of land in the Connecticut valley, but very little 
was done under this grant in the way of settlement. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 71 

munity. Hooker and his people carried their household goods 
with them and drove their cattle before them. Their migra- 
tion westward through the roadless forests of Massachusetts 
seeking the rich and ample lands of the Connecticut Valley 
was the first movement of that great wave of civilization, 
which for more than two hundred years was always moving 
toward the West. Within two years after the arrival of 
Hooker the new colony of Connecticut had a population of 
800 souls grouped in the three towns of Hartford, Wethers- 
field, and Windsor. 

The nev/ towns thrived, but the lives of the settlers were The 
harassed by the attacks of the Indians, who were now be- war 
ginning to see that the white man was gradually driving them 
from their hunting-grounds. The Pequot tribe were so trouble- 
some to the Connecticut settlers that it became necessary to 
send a force of armed men against them. In 1637 ninety men 
from Connecticut attacked the Pequot stronghold at the mouth, 
of the Mystic River and inflicted upon the tribe a punishment 
so terrible that the colonists were not disturbed again by In- 
dians for forty years. 

As offshoots of Massachusetts the new towns naturally The 
came under the jurisdiction of that colony, but inasmuch as written 
they lay outside of the boundaries of Massachusetts (p. 62) tion 
the parent colony could not very well exercise its rightful 
authority over them.^ So when the people of Connecticut un- 
dertook to set up a government of their own Massachusetts 
made no attempt to hold them. A general government for 
Connecticut was organized in 1639 when the freemen of Weth- 
ersfield, Windsor, and Hartford came together and adopted 
the " Fundamental Orders." This was an organic act estab- 
lishing a definite plan by which the new colony was to be gov- 
erned " as a public state or commonwealth." This frame-work 
of government drawn up by the Connecticut settlers is the 
first example in history of a written constitution, for never 

1 Agawam (Springfield) was also a river town founded (1636) by the Con- 
necticut settlers, but as it lay within the boundaries of Massachusetts, it took 
no part in Connecticut affairs. 



72 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



New 
Haven 



before had a people in person planned for their own govern- 
ment and at the same time written out the details of the plan 
in plain black and white. 

\\'hile the settlers of the river towns were laying the founda- 
tions of Connecticut, another colony was forming on the north 
shore of Long Island Sound. In 1638 a small company of 
Puritans under the leadership of John Davenport, a preacher, 
and Theophilus Eaton, a merchant, settled at " Quinnipiac," 
afterwards called New Haven. In 1639 the New Haven set- 
tlers met in a barn and drew up a covenant, pledging them- 
selves to be guided by the precepts of the Scriptures, and for 
many years the colony was governed like Judea of old by 
the rules of the Mosaic law. The towns of Mil ford, Guil- 
ford, Stamford, and Branford quickly sprang up in the neigh- 
borhood of New Haven and these were united to the parent 
colony. In 1662 Charles II gave out a charter which united 
New Haven to the Connecticut Colony and thus ended the 
existence of " the Bible Commonwealth," as New Haven was 
called. The charter provided that Connecticut should extend 
westward to the Pacific Ocean just as if the Dutch on the 
Hudson had no right to be there. In matters of government 
the king was as liberal to Connecticut as he was to Rhode 
Island ; he allowed the colony to govern itself. 



The 
New 
England 
Confed- 
eration 



29. THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND (1643-1689). 

Thus within a score of years after the landing of the Pil- 
grim fathers the foundation of New England was fully laid. 
In 1640 the combined population of New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Ha- 
ven was probably about 25,000. By this time the colonies were 
beginning to feel the need of some kind of union. Accordingly 
in 1643 commissioners from Plymouth, Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, and New Haven met at Boston and formed a compact 
known as the New England Confederation. New Hampshire 
was denied membership in the Confederation because it " ran 
a different course " from the other colonies " in its ministry 
and administration." Rhode Island was not allowed to join 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND ^2, 

because it was regarded " as tumultuous and schismatic." The 
avowed purpose of the Confederation was to defend the colo- 
nies against the French, the Dutch, and the Indians. More- 
over, there was a secret hope that if the tyranny of Charles 

"f I (p. 64) should show it- 

tj ' ^l'^ i" ^^'^ ""^ ^'^^^ England the 
t5 '^ i ^ Confederation would help 

• <^ ^ 1 % ^ ^ i' *^^ colonies in the defense 

^ ^1 1 11- Ic^ of their liberties. This Con- 

"jS ^»'<£<S ^ 1=^ federation, although it ac- 

Q 'f^4_^|^/1 complished nothing very 

I '^ 'I .1^4 ^ i remarkable, taught the 

. *^ ^".i^ e* I "^ C^ colonies how to combme, 

B- ^ '^ ^ ^^ I ' i ^ ^"^ ^^ ^"^^ therefore be re- 

^ ^"^ Ici'l ^ iicli fe^^'ded as the first step in 

^ \^ V"^^ !:1 ^^ ^^^ formation of our fed- 

■^ 'k^l ^1^- ^^i.if ^^^^ union. It was dis- 

"^ t^aj'^ t "^ 1 '• ^ ^ solved in 1684. 

-S i ^ I 1 R i I t The New England Con- The 

& C 1^ I J I ^% i %y federation was formed ^r^^^. 

^ ca H k ,:^ ri""-^- i without consulting the rp^rlfL 

ta ^^tSh'^^d ^l wishes of the English gov- g-,^, 

^S .^4 ^ P^^^T^>s ernment. Indeed New 

^ ^^ °f I I Id ^ i England at this tmie was 

** ^ T*%>1 cL?^ ^cr* breaking away from the 

"§ ^ -1^^ ^% 1 \ J%- authority of the mother- 

& s" I9 "^ 5 r i country. The storm which 

i I -^^i 4^ 1 "to/^ ^ '^^^ gathering in England 

^ tV^ciri"^ ^^^^" ^'^^ Puritans began 

« J^ 2^ 4 4^ ? ^° ^^^^^ ^P- ^5) broke in 

§ § r ■ G-^ ^ ^ between the King and the 

§ ^ 1^^ ^- i ^ Parliament. The King was 

t 1^ t> I 5-^ ■ defeated and (in 1649) 

f") "^ ^"^"l ^^'^^ beheaded. Then came 

1qL f^l rt^ the rule of Oliver Crom- 

V. well and the Parliament 



74 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



which lasted until 1660, when Charles II was restored to the 
throne. During the years of civil strife the English govern- 
ment, whether it was the King or the Parliament that was rul- 
ing, was so busy with affairs at home that it could give but little 
attention to what was going on in the colonies. As a result of 
this freedom of control there grew up in the colonies a spirit 
of independence and a disposition to manage colonial affairs 
without regard to the wishes of England. This independent 
spirit was strongest in Massachusetts, where the colonial gov- 
ernment assumed to act almost as if England were not in 
the world. The rulers of Massachusetts ceased to issue writs 
in the King's name, dropped the English oath of allegiance, 
and adopted a new oath in which public officers and the peo- 
ple swore allegiance, not to England, but to Massachusetts. 

In matters of religion the people of New England were 
even more independent than they were in matters of govern- 
ment. Especially was this true of Massachusetts. Here Pu- 
ritanism soon became something entirely different from what 
it was in England. In England the Puritans had been will- 
ing to accept the authority of the Established Church, but once 
in the free atmosphere of New England they had broken away 
from the EstaliHshed Church, with the result that by 1650 they 
were as truly a body of Independents as were the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth. 
The We have seen that the close union of church and state in 

Theocracy Massachusetts made that colony a Puritan theocracy. Since 
this theocracy was virtually independent of England it could 
rule with a high hand, for there was nothing to withstand 
its power. And it did rule with a high hand. The clergy were 
all powerful in temporal as well as in spiritual matters. They 
not only argued cases in the courts, but even acted as judges. 
They would boldly go into lawsuits which were in progress, 
" observe what was going on and if they were not pleased with 
the judge's decision would overrule it, and if they did not like 
the action of the jury they would overrule it and pronounce 
the verdict themselves." 

The harshness of the Puritan rule was seen in the case of 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 



75 



the Quakers. Members of this sect began to come to Massa- The^^^^ 
chusetts in 1656 and they quickly became troublesome. They oj^^^^sa- 
disregarded the formalities of religion, they paid no respect 
to the clergy as a class, they did not venerate the Sabbath, 
they would not attend church, they would not contribute to 
the support of religion. They were therefore regarded by 
the Puritans as extremely dangerous people and were ordered 
to leave Massachusetts. In their efforts to get rid of the 
Quakers the rulers of Massachusetts followed a course of 
persecution, which was perhaps more bitter than was visited 
upon this sect anywhere else, and it was bitterly persecuted 
everywhere both in the Old World and in the new. In 'Massa- 
chusetts the Quakers were whipped, imprisoned, and even put 
to death. Public sentiment, however, revolted against these 
cruelties. In 1660 the severest of the laws against the Quakers 
were repealed, and soon the persecution ceased almost entirely. 

Still, many of the good people of Massachusetts felt that King 
the Quakers had been treated too mildly. When in 1674 the war 
people of Boston set apart a day for humiliation and prayer, 
one of the sins repented for was the mildness which was being 
shown to Quakers. This day of supplication was ordered be- 
cause it seemed that the city was about to be attacked by a 
powerful band of In- 
dians. The city of 
Boston, as it hap- 
pened, escaped, but in 
1675 the Indians, un- 
der the leadership of 
a chief known as 
King Philip, fell upon 
the whites not far 
away. This uprising, 
like most others of its 
kind, was due chiefly 
to the pressure of 

population upon the territory of the red man. " The Eng- 
lish cattle and swine trespassed upon the land of the Indians 




aajemsj jtLA XTIC 
H.USETTS f ^iC 




Scene of Kingf Philip's War. 



^e ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

and were killed. A fine was imposed. Thus by steps, legal 
it may be, but wholly inadequate in the case of an illiterate 
and ignorant race, more land was taken under pretext of com- 
pensation." In order to avert the coming destruction of his 
people King Philip determined to strike a decisive blow. He 
attacked the whites at Swansea in Rhode Island and killed 
eight men. A cruel warfare now spread over a large part of 
New England, and before the Indians could be subdued they 
had burned and pillaged thirteen towns and had killed more 
than 2,000 settlers. King Philip, who was the cause of all 
this destruction, was (in 1676) hunted down and shot. "The 
seasonable prey was soon divided ; they cut off his head and 
hands and quartered his body and hung it upon four trees."' 
With this act of barbarism King Philip's War came to an 
end and the Indian power in New England was forever 
destroyed, 
E^ For ten years following King Philip's War, peace and quiet 

Andros reigned in New England. Then the Puritan Colonies w'ere 
again thrown into a state of alarm, for the independence and 
liberty which they had so long enjoyed was suddenly threat- 
ened with extinction. This happened soon after Charles II 
died (in 1685), and his brother, James II, was proclaimed 
King. James II, desiring to give the colonies a more efficient 
government and to bring them more directly under the con- 
trol of the crown — just what Charles II had desired — sent 
out (1686) Sir Edmund Andros to act as governor of all New 
England. Andros had power to make laws, levy taxes, ad- 
minister justice, and all the armed forces of all the colonies 
were brought under his rule. Besides this he was empowered 
to deprive the colonies of their charters and give them new 
forms of grant. Rhode Island and Plymouth submitted grace- 
fully to the new order of things. Connecticut protested against 
the surrender of the Charter and Andros failed to get his hands 
upon the precious document. In Massachusetts, as was to be 
expected, the opposition was strong, but it was ineffectual ; 
the new governor took from the colony the old charter which 
Winthrop brought over (p. 65) and Massachusetts was made 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 77 

a royal province with Andros officially established as its gov- 
ernor (1689). 

But the rule of Andros was short, for the rule of his mas- The 
ter was soon brought to an end. When James II ascended Revoiu- 
the throne the perversity of the Stuart house renewed itself, of 1688 
The new King attempted to establish a permanent despotism, 
but his tyranny brought on a revolution — the " Glorious Revo- 
lution of 1688 " — which resulted in his own dethronement. 
Parliament, when choosing William III as the successor of 
James, declared as an act of precaution the conditions upon 
which the crown was to be held. This declaration, known as 
the English Bill of Rights, stated plainly the rights which 
Englishmen were henceforth to enjoy. It stated that laws The 
should not be suspended or repealed by the executive, that Rights 
taxes should not be levied without the consent of Parliament, 
that citizens should not be denied the right of petition, that 
freedom of speech and debate in Parliament should not be 
impeached or questioned in any place out of Parliament, that 
excessive bail ought not to be required, that cruel and unusual 
punishments ought not to be inflicted. The Bill of Rights 
was of the utmost importance to the colonists, because the 
rights won in England accrued to Englishmen in America. 

No sooner had James been driven from his throne than Massa- 
Andros was sent out of Massachusetts. But Massachusetts a Eoyai 
was not restored to its former state of independence. In 169 1 
William III joined Plymouth to Massachusetts and in the fol- 
lowing year Massachusetts was again made a royal province.^ 
The colony still had its representative assembly — its General 

1 When the first royal governor arrived in Massachusetts he found the colony 
in a state of great excitement caused by an outburst of the witchcraft delusion; 
for a belief in witches, even among the most intelligent, was still quite general, 
both in England and in the colonies. In 1692 the people of Salem and several 
neighboring towns became possessed of the notion that witches — persons in 
secret alliance with Satan — were in the midst of them. About two hundred 
persons were accused, and since witchcraft was legally recognized as a crime 
scores of the supposed witches were arrested. Before the magistrates and people 
could regain their senses twenty innocent persons were tried, found guilty, and 
put to death. 



78 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Court — but its governor was to be appointed 1)y the Crown. 
The old theocracy was abolished, and the right of suffrage, 
once limited to church members (p. 65), was bestowed on all 
male adults possessing a certain amount of property. Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island received their old charters back 
and were allowed to govern themselves as they had always 
done. Thus by the end of the seventeenth century all the New 
England colonies were established on what seemed a permanent 
basis of loyalty to the crown and all enjoyed a large measure 
of local independence. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. New Hampshire and Maine: Tyler, 266-281. 

2. Roger Williams: Halsey II, 131-134. 

3. Give an account of the trial of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson : Hart 1 
382-387. 

4. Rhode Island : Hart I, 407-409. 

5. The founding of Connecticut: Halsey II, 135-144. 

6. What were the leading provisions of the Fundamental Orders? 
Hart I, 415-419. 

7. The conquest of the Pequots : Hitchcock, 32-42. 

8. The New England Confederation: Tyler, 297-317. 

9. The personal government of Charles I: Green, 514-534. 

10. Characterize Oliver Cromwell : Green, 466-467. 

11. The Civil War in England: Green, 547-559. 

12. The defeat of King Philip: Hitchcock, 44-56. 

13. The growth of civil liberty: Forman, 87-93. 

14. What were some of the so-called Connecticut "Blue Laws"? 
Under what circumstances was Thanksgiving Day first observed? Why 
were the doctrines of the Quakers offensive to the Puritans? Why 
were the followers of Charles I called Cavaliers? Why were the fol- 
lowers of Cromwell called Roundheads? Describe the trial of a 
witch. Sketch the life and character of Cotton Mather. Tell the 
story of the Charter Oak. Why did Charles II grant liberal charters 
to Rhode Island and Connecticut? 

15. Special Reading. Andrew Johnston, Connecticut. J. G. Pal- 
frey, History of Nczv England during the Stuart Dynasty. O. S. 
Straus, Roger IVilliams. S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island. 



IX 

THE OLD DOMINION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 

In a previous chapter the history of Virginia was brought down to 
the year 1625, when the colony became a royal province, which in 
time came to be known as the " Old Dominion." What was the early 
history of the Old Dominion? About the time Virginia began to 
prosper and flourish another colony (Maryland) arose at the north, 
and a little later two other colonies (the Carolinas) were planted at 
the south. What was the early history of these neighbors of the Old 
Dominion ? 

30. VIRGINIA AS A ROYAL PROVINCE. 

After Virginia passed (in 1624) under the control of the The 
crown, her history was no longer the story of a terrible strug- tiolf**" 
gle for existence, but was rather " a tale of a steady but un- y^*®™ 
heroic prosperity among a rich class of planters." Tobacco 
continued to be the staple product, wheat being the only other 
article which was exported. Tobacco was most profitably 
cultivated upon a large scale and the plantations ranged in 
area from one thousand to fifty thousand acres. The lay- 
ing out of new estates followed the courses of the numerous 
streams and the great size of the plantations gave every planter 
a water-front and a private wharf. The goods of English 
merchants ^ — ^ fine cloths, rich carpets, mahogany furniture — 
were brought direct to the planter's wharf and paid for in 
tobacco. This system of large estates and direct trade with 
English merchants led to two important results in Virginia : 
it created a rich and luxurious class of land-holders, and it 
prevented the growth of large towns. For more than a hun- 
dred years after its settlement there was not a single large 
town in all Virginia. 

79 



8o ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

The After the downfall of Charles I (p. 73) the Cavaliers, as 

the faithful followers of the King were called, found life in 
England extremely unpleasant. On this account large num- 
bers of them sought homes in the Old Dominion, where the 
Royalist sentiment was strong. Among these Cavaliers were 
many of England's leading men : nobles, gentlemen, and clergy. 
One of them was John Washington, " the great grandfather of 
a greater Washington." In a single year — the year (1649), 
the year of the King's execution — seven shiploads of such 
men set sail for Virginia. 

Cromwell When Oliver Cromwell, a plain English citizen, was chosen 

and the ' r & ' 

Virginians as the ruler to succeed Charles I, the Cavalier element in Vir- 
ginia was so strong for monarchy that the Assembly refused 
to recognize anybody but the son of a King (Charles II) as 
the " naturall sovereigne." But Cromwell was in fact the mas- 
ter. He sent a fleet to Virginia and demanded the surrender 
of Jamestown. The Virginians at first planned for resistance, 
but the governor. Sir William Berkeley, gave the government 
into the hands of the commissioners whom Cromwell had sent 
to take charge of the colony's affairs. The commissioners 
established for the colony a government which differed but 
slightly from the one it already had, and which left the Vir- 
ginians in possession of all the rights and liberties enjoyed 
by free-born persons in England. 

Governor In 1660 the rule of the Cromwellians came to an end and 

Berkeley 

Charles II was restored to the throne. The restoration was 
a pleasing event to the Virginians. Repenting of their sub- 
mission to Cromwell, they desired that " their sorrows might 
expiate their crime and that their tears might wash away 
their guilt." Charles II appreciated this loyalty " of the best 
of his distant children," yet his dealings with Virginia caused 
irritation and discontent. He appointed as governor. Sir 
William Berkeley, the man who had been dislodged by Crom- 
well. Berkeley was an able man, but he was of a most tyran- 
nical disposition, and inclined to give more attention to his 
private affairs than to his duties as governor. When in 1676 
Virginia was attacked in the dead of night by the Indians, and 



THE OLD DOMINION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 8i 

about forty white persons were murdered, Berkeley, who was 
carrying on a profitable fur-trade with the Indians, allowed 
the outrage to go unpunished. This inactivity caused a re- 
volt. Nathaniel Bacon, in defiance of the Governor's wishes. Bacon's 
gathered a body of fighting men and inflicted upon the Indians 
the punishment they deserved. This brought on a conflict 
which ended in the burning of Jamestown and in the expulsion 
of Berkeley from the colony. Bacon was now master of Vir- 
ginia, but he died just as he was at the height of his power. 
Berkeley returned to Virginia and wreaked upon the followers 
of Bacon a terrible vengeance. Twenty-three persons were 
put to death. " That old fool," said Charles II, " has taken 
away more lives in that naked country than I did here for the 
death of my father." The King in disgust deprived Berke- 
ley of his office. 

Another cause of irritation and discontent in Virginia dur- JJ^^. ^ 
ing the reign of Charles II (1660-1685) was the Navigation ^°^g 
Laws. In 165 1 Parliament had enacted that no European 
goods could be brought to England or to her colonies except 
in English-built and English-manned vessels. The purpose of 
the act was to build up English shipping and at the same 
time cripple the shipping of Holland, the country which had 
recently pushed to the front and 
become the great rival of England 
in matters of trade. Most of Eng- 
land's carrying trade was done in 
Dutch vessels. In 1663 Parlia- 
ment, wishing the English to carry 
their own goods in their own ves- 
sels, took still another step, and ^ '^'^ ° Cent'ufy^'"*''''*^ 
practically prohibited the colonies 

from receiving any commodities which were not laden and 
shipped in Great Britain. These laws bore heavily upon 
Virginia, for they compelled the tobacco-growers to deal only 
with English merchants who fixed the price to be paid for 
tobacco and the price to be paid for goods brought into the 
colony. 




82 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Life 
in the 
Old 

Dominion 
(Ban- 
croft) 



But in spite of unpopular governors and restrictive Naviga- 
tion Laws, the Old Dominion prospered and became more 
and more attractive as a home for settlers. " The clear at- 
mosphere, especially of autumn, and the milder winter de- 
lighted the comers from England. Many objects in nature 
were new and wonderful : the loud and frequent thunder- 
storms ; trees clothed in flowers of brilliant colors; birds with 
gay plumage and varied melodies. Every traveler admired 
the mocking-bird which repeated and excelled the notes of 
its rival; and the humming-bird, so bright in its lines and 
delicate in its form. The lover of the garden found the 
fruits of Europe improved in flavor by the joint influence of 
climate and soil. The chase furnished a perpetual resource. 
The hospitality of the Virginians was proverbial. Land was 
cheap and competence followed industry. There was no need 
of a scramble. The morasses were alive with water-fowl, the 
creeks abounded with oysters heaped together in inexhaustible 
beds ; the rivers were crowded with fish ; the forests were 
alive with game, the wind rustled with covies of quails and 
wild turkeys, and hogs ran at large in troops. It was the best 
poor men's country in the world." The stream of emi- 
gration to this delightful place was steady, and by 1675, ^^^ 
population of the Old Dominion was nearly fifty thousand. 



The 

Maryland 

Grant 



31. MARYLAND. 

Among the Englishmen who were early attracted to the far 
Virginia country was George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore 
and founder of Maryland. Calvert had long been interested 
in colonization, having held shares in the Virginia enterprise 
and having been a member of the Council for New England. 
In 1623 he secured a charter for planting a colony at Avalon, 
in Newfoundland. In 1628 he went to Avalon with his fam- 
ily, but the climate there was too severe. So the Newfound- 
land colony was abandoned. In 1629 Calvert visited James- 
town, taking with him his family and some followers, l)ut he 
was an unwelcome visitor because he was a Roman Catholic. 
He was commanded to take the oath upholding the Church 



THE OLD DOMINION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 



83 



of England, and when he refused to do this, he was ordered out 
of the colony. However, being in high favor with Charles 
I, he was able to secure from that monarch a tract of land 
lying between the Potomac River and the fortieth parallel. 
This grant, called Maryland, included not only the Maryland 
of to-day, but in addition Delaware, a part of Pennsylvania, and 
a part of West Virginia. '^ Of this splendid estate Baltimore 
was made absolute owner and lord 
proprietor. George Calvert died 
before the charter passed the royal 
seals, but the grant was transferred 
to his son, Cecilius Calvert. Under 
this . charter the proprietor was 
vested with almost unlimited politi- 
cal power. He could declare war, 
make peace, appoint all colonial 
officers, pardon criminals, and con- 
fer titles. He could also make 
laws for the government of his 
colony, but all such laws had to 
receive the approval of the free- 
men. They did not, however, 
have to receive the approval of the 
King. Maryland was thus almost 
entirely independent of the Crown in matters of government. 
The actual settlement of Maryland began in 1634, when The 

^ ^ . Founding 

Leonard Calvert, a brother of Cecilius, and the first governor ot of 
the province, founded the town of St. Marys near the mouth ^l 
of the Potomac River. With him came over about 200 colo- 
nists. Of these, twenty were persons of leisure, while the 
others were laborers and artisans. Since Englishmen had by 
this time learned the art of colonization, the settlement of 
Maryland was easily accomplished. The neighboring Indians, 




George Calvert. 

First Lord Baltimore, born at 
Kipling, Yorkshire, England, 
about 15S0; died, 1632. 



1 When Pennsylvania was granted to Penn a dispute arose between Lord 
Baltimore and Penn as to the boundary between their grants. The matter was 
settled in 1767, when the Mason and Dixon's Line was established. This line 
separated Maryland from Delaware and Pennsylvania. The boundary between 
Maryland and West Virginia was not definitely settled until 1912. 



84 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



William 
Clai- 
borne 



Govern- 
ment 



who were of a very peaceful and kindly disposition, received 
the colonists with open arms. They sold Baltimore a large 
tract of land and assisted the settlers in planting corn, the 
first yield of which was so large that the colony could supply 
its own needs and sell a portion of the crop to New England. 
Tobacco at an early date began to be raised and was soon the 
staple product, just as it was in Virginia. The growth of the 
colony was steady and healthful. " We know," says Doyle, 
" but little of the early economical history of Maryland. What 
little we do know, however, indicates a high degree of pros- 
perity. We hear nothing of the trials which usually beset 
a young colony, and we find no trace of material sufifering." 

Still, early Maryland was not entirely without its troubles. 
Its relations with its neighbor, Virginia, were by no means 
friendly, because the Virginians thought that the land which 
was given to Calvert really belonged to their own colony. The 
Mrginian who gave the Marylanders the most trouble was 
William Claiborne, who was called the " evil genius of Mary- 
land." Claiborne had received from Charles I license to 
trade within the region included in the Maryland grant, and 
in 1 63 1 he had built a traders' post on Kent Island in the 
Chesapeake Ray. When Calvert came to claim his land he 
informed Claiborne that the settlers on Kent Island owed their 
allegiance to Maryland. Claiborne refused to acknowledge 
the proprietorship of Calvert on the ground that Kent Island 
was a part of \'irginia. As a matter of fact the island at 
the time was represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses. 
Soon one of Claiborne's boats was seized for trading in Mary- 
land without a Maryland license. This led to the first naval 
battle upon the inland waters of America, for Claiborne at- 
tempted to recapture his boat, and in the fight which ensued 
several men were killed. The quarrel between Claiborne and 
the Calverts continued for many years, but in the end Kent 
Island was won for Maryland. 

Within the colony there was some trouble in regard to the 
form of government Maryland was to have. The charter gave 
the people power to reject laws proposed by the proprietor, 



THE OLD DOxMINlON AND ITS NEIGHBORS 85 

but it gave them no right to initiate laws. This right the free- 
men demanded, and taking matters into their own hands, they 
drew up (1635) a code of laws for the province. The code 
was rejected by the proprietor on the ground that he alone 
had the right of initiative. In 1638 the proprietor drew up 
a code which in turn was rejected by the freemen. Thus, for 
a time there was a deadlock. But Lord Baltimore soon gave 
way and allowed the freemen to make the laws subject to 
the veto of the governor. Thus, in order to meet the demands 
of the freemen, the terms of the charter were reversed. Some 
years passed before the organization of the government was 
fully determined, but by 1649 Maryland had a representative 
assembly, a council, and a governor — the usual form of co- 
lonial government. 

But the most important feature of early Maryland history The 
was the religious toleration which was practised in the colony, tion 
Cecilius Calvert was a Catholic, and he wished Maryland to be 
a place where the Catholics of England might find refuge 
from persecution, for the laws of England were even more 
severe against Catholics than they were against Puritans 
(p. 58). But he was willing to accord to others the toler- 
ation he desired for himself. So from the very beginning the 
people of Maryland enjoyed religious freedom. " Toleration in 
the province grew up silently as the custom of the land.'' In 
1649 the Maryland Assembly, in which Catholics had the ma- 
jority of votes, passed an act providing that " no person pro- 
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ shall from henceforth be 
anywise troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for or in re- 
spect of his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof, 
within this province." Thus there was established in Mary- 
land that religious liberty for which Roger Williams about 
the same time (p. 69) was pleading so strongly. But the 
plans of Williams were broader than those of Lord Baltimore, 
for in Maryland only Christians were welcome, while in Rhode 
Island men of any faith and men of no faith were welcome. 
Still, the toleration act passed by the little Maryland assembly 
was a most important step in the march of human progress, 



86 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

and it well deserves the praise which Bancroft gives it when 
he calls it the " morning star of religious freedom." 
Mary- During the long conflict between the King and Parliament, 

and the Lord Baltimore "trimmed his sails with masterly art,"' now 
weiiians inclining to one party, now to the other. Once while the 
Cromwellians were in power (1649-1660) Claiborne came for- 
ward and secured control of the Alaryland government, but 
Baltimore soon regained his power. When Charles II was re- 
stored to his throne he upheld the authority of the proprietor. 
Pros- Maryland now had a population of 12,000, and was a highly 

prosperous colony. The tobacco-crop was extremely profit- 
able, sea food was abundant, the eastern shore of the Chesa- 
peake being especially famous for its oysters, terrapin, and 
canvasback ducks. For hospitality and social graces Maryland 
was as famous as its neighbor, Virginia. The colony remained 
under the rule of the proprietor until 1692, when it was made 
a royal province. In 1715, however, Maryland was again 
restored to the Baltimore family, and it remained a proprietary 
colony until the Revolution. 

2,2. THE CAROLINAS. 

The About the time Charles I granted Maryland to George Cal- 

lina ' vert, he likewise granted (1629) Carolina to Sir Robert Heath. 

No settlement, however, was made under the Heath grant, and 
all rights under it fell into disuse. In 1663, Charles II made 
a second grant of Carolina, giving it to eight proprietors, of 
whom the Earl of Clarendon was the leading man. 

Carolina at this time was a vast and empty territory lying 
between English Virginia and Spanish Florida. As described 
by the charter, Carolina lay between the 31st and 36th parallels 
and extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The powers 
given to the proprietors were similar to those given to Lord 
Baltimore, the only difference between the Maryland charter 
and the Carolina charter being that the former gave a vast 
estate to one man, while the latter bestowed an empire upon 
a group of eight men. 
North The settlement of Carolina really began some years before 

Carolina ^ o 



THE OLD DOMINION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 87. 

the grant to the proprietors was made. About 1650, frontiers- 
men began to leave Virginia and settle along Albemarle Sound, 
where the farming-lands were good and where the freedom 
of pioneer life could be fully enjoyed. It was in the Albe- 
marle region that the proprietors of Carolina began to develop 
their grant and institute their government. In 1664, William 
Drummond was sent to rule over the little settlements in the 
Albemarle district. The next year there was held in the Albe- 
marle colony a general assembly composed of a governor, a 
council and twelve delegates. The assembling of this legis- 
lature marks the beginning of the political history of North 
Carolina. For, although Carolina was granted to a single 
group of proprietors and was regarded as a single province, 
the territory was divided into two clearly defined jurisdictions, 
one of which was called North Carolina and the other South 
Carolina. 

South Carolina had its beginning in 1670, when about 150 South 
colonists settled at the mouth of the Ashley River and built 
a cluster of cabins which they called Charlestown, in honor 
of the King. Old Charlestown, as this first settlement was 
called, was gradually abandoned and by 1680 a new Charles- 
town (now called Charleston), with a population of 1000 in- 
habitants, had arisen in the peninsula between the Ashley and 
the Cooper Rivers. The proprietors attempted to govern 
South Carolina according to the plan of the Grand Model, a 
fantastical scheme of government drawn up by the philosopher, 
John Locke. The Grand Model provided in great detail for Grand 
the division of the colonists into classes. There was to be 
an upper or governing class consisting of landgraves (earls) 
and caciques (barons). Below the governing class there was 
to be a lower class whose status was to be practically that of 
serfs. Locke's scheme was wholly unsuitable to the condi- 
tions which prevailed in the colony, and it failed to work. 
The people desired a simple form of government and they es- 
tablished one of the usual colonial type. 

The proprietors were diligent in their efiforts to secure set- The 
tiers for the Carolinas and they took great pains to advertise rfarounas 



88 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Devel- 
opment 
of the 
Carollnaa 




the resources and advantages of their great estate. In the 
pamphlets describing CaroHna, the country is pictured in the 

most glowing terms. 
" The air is of so 
serene and excellent 
a temper that the 
Indian natives pro- 
long their days to 
the extremity of old 
age. The soil is 
clothed with odor- 
iferous and fragrant 
woods : the lofty 
pine, the sweet-smell- 
ing cedar and Cyprus. 
Fruit trees there are 
Along the Carolina coast. in abundance, the 

orange, lemon, pome- 
granate, fig and almond. The peach trees in incredible num- 
bers grow wild. Indian corn produces a vast increase, yearly 
yielding two plentiful harvests. Tobacco grows very well. 
Of tar, made of the resinous juice of the pine (which boiled to 
a thick consistency is pitch), they make great quantities yearly. 
Indigo they have made, and that good. Of beasts bearing furs 
they have great store of variety. Birds the country yields of 
different kinds and colors, pelican, hawk, eagle, swan, goose, 
duck, plover, partridge. The seas and rivers of the same 
bounty participate in the variety of excellent and wholesome 
fish : sturgeon, salmon, trout, bass, drum, cat. The neighbor- 
ing Indians are very kind and serviceable, doing for our nation 
such civilities and good turns as lie in their power." 

Such alluring pictures could hardly fail of their purpose. 
A tide of emigration to the Carolinas at once set in. From 
Holland came some Dutch settlers, bringing with them their 
money and their industrious habits. From Scotland came a 
large body of Covenanters, fearing the establishment of the 
Catholic power at home. In South Carolina the Huguenots 



THE OLD DOMIxNION AND ITS NEIGHBORS 89 

(p. 2)2) found refuge from religious persecution. In 1598 
the French king, Henry of Navarre, issued the Edict of Nan- 
tes, under which Huguenots were allowed to live in peace ; 
but in 1685 the Edict was revoked and a persecution of Hugue- 
nots followed. Thousands of the persecuted sect fled from 
France and sought refuge in foreign lands. Many of them 
came to the English colonies and settled in New York, in 
Maryland, in Virginia, in the Carolinas. Some of them went 
to Charleston, where they rendered noble service in the up- 
building of South Carolina. From England came large num- 
bers of Quakers who settled in North Carolina and became 
the ruling element in public affairs. These accessions gave to 
the Carolinas a motley population and a mixed social organi- 
zation, but they built up the new colonies quite rapidly. By 
1690 the two Carolinas together contained nearly 8,000 inhab- 
itants. In North Carolina the population was scattered, and 
it was fifty years before the colony could boast of a village 
with a dozen houses. In South Carolina everything centered 
around Charleston, which as early as 1685 had a population 
of several thousand and contained " buildings of great orna- 
ment and beauty." Rice and indigo were the chief products 
of South Carolina. In the cultivation of the rice fields slave 
labor was employed. In North Carolina the products of the 
forest were the chief sources of profit, tar and turpentine 
being exported in large quantities. 

The Carolinas in their early days had a stormy and troublous Pirates 
existence. For one thing, they were greatly annoyed by pi- 
rates. The leader of the pirates was Edward Teach, usually 
known as " Blackbeard." Teach and his gang would dart 
from their hiding-places along the coast and capture merchant 
ships that passed by. After they had kept the coast in a state 
of terror for many years they were attacked by a naval force 
sent out from Virginia and the war upon them did not 
cease until Blackbeard and his followers were shot or hanged. 
Then the Carolina colonists were troubled by the Spaniards 
who lived at St. Augustine and who more than once appeared 
in force along the coast, destroying life and property. 



90 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



lUit the greatest trouble in the Carohnas came from the 
colonists themselves. The relations between the proprietors 
and the people were never satisfactory, and there was ceaseless 
bickering and strife. Once the regular proprietary govern^ 
ment was overthrown by rebellious colonists. The proprietors 
having reaped but little gain from their Carolina possessions, 
at last decided to get rid of them entirely. In 1729 they sold 
North Carolina and South Carolina to the King of England, 
each proprietor receiving £5,000 for his share. The two Caro- 
linas were soon under the direct control of the King, where 
they remained until the Revolution. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Navigation Acts and Colonial Trade : Andrews, 3-21. 

2. The Old Dominion: Channing I, 205-241. 

3. Sketch the life of Nathaniel Bacon: Halsey II, 164-172. 

4. The settlement of Maryland : Halsey II, 125-130. 

5. The founding of Maryland: Tyler, 1 18-132. 

6. Describe conditions in Maryland as they existed in 1666: Hart 
T, 242-246. 

7. The development of Virginia : Andrews, 202-214. 

8. The development of Maryland : Andrews, 232-252 ; also Cheney, 
202-215. 

9. The founding of the Carolinas : Andrews, 129-144. 

10. Dates for the chronological table : 1634, 1662, 1675. 

11. Describe the life of a southern planter in the latter part of the 
seventeenth century. Give a full account of the uprising of the In- 
dians m Virginia in 1676. Examine the statute for toleration referred 
to in the text and compare the religious freedom guaranteed by the 
statute with that enjoyed in America to-day. (For the statute see 
Hart I, 291-294.) What articles enumerated by the Navigation Act 
of 1660 could be shipped only to England or to other English colo- 
nies? Was Nathaniel Bacon a traitor? 

12. Special Reading. Doyle, English Colonics in America, I, 230- 
280. Bancroft I, 154-175, 346-352, 429-436, 427-474. Fiske, The Old 
Dominion and Its Neighbors, Vol. II. P. A. Bruce, Economic History 
of Virginia. J. C. Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. 
H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Sc^rntccnth Century, 
Vol. III. 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 

We saw (p. 54) that the territory l:ietween Connecticut at the 
north and Maryland at the south was settled by the Dutch and 
claimed by them as their rightful possession. Before many years 
passed, the Dutch were ousted from New Netherland and their 
colony passed under English control. This change led to the de- 
velopment of four English colonies known as the Middle colonies: 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. How was this 
change brought about? What was the early history of the four colonies 
which arose within the region claimed by the Dutch? 

33. THE END OF DUTCH RULE IN NEW YORK AND THE 
BEGINNING OF ENGLISH RULE. 

The settlement on Manhattan Island (p. 53) flourished as Patroon 
a trading-station, but agriculture in New Netherlands did not 
thrive. The Dutch were good traders and seafarers, but they 
did not take kindly to the hoe and the ax, nor to the hard life 
of the pioneer farmer. Yet the Dutch West India Company 
knew that if its occupancy of the Hudson region was to be 
permanent the colony must have its roots in the soil. So in 
order to attract farmers, it established (in 1629) what 
was called the patroon system. This provided for the develop- 
ment of immense private estates along the banks of the rivers 
?nd bays of New Netherlands, especially along the banks of 
the Hudson River. Each patroon, or proprietor, who could 
bring over fifty settlers was granted a tract of land sixteen 
miles wide along the river if on one side, or eight miles wide 
if on both sides, the tract extending " so far into the country 
as the situation of the occupier would permit." The patroon 
was vested with almost complete political power over his colo- 
nists whose position was little better than that of serfs. But 

91 



92 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



the patroon system failed of its purpose : it did not attract set- 
tlers enough to make New Netherlands a colony of farm- 
ers. Even the patroons themselves neglected their fields for 
the profits of the fur-trade. 

Life in the Dutch colony centered at New Amsterdam, 
which, in 1653. was incorporated as a city. The population 
of the future metropolis of the Western Hemisphere con- 
sisted at this time of about 800 persons, a motley collec- 
tion of fur-traders, sailors, wharf-keepers, and longshoremen. 
From the outset the little city showed its metropolitan 
character, for besides Dutchmen it contained Englishmen, 
Scotchmen, Jews, Walloons, and men of other nationali- 
ties. The laws had to be published in several different lan- 
guages, and on Broadway more than a dozen tongues were 
spoken. 

Since the Dutch colony was not firmly planted in the soil, 
and since its population was mixed and shifting, its footing 
was at no time very secure. The Dutch indeed claimed all 
the Atlantic coast from Capef Cod to Cape Henlopen, but other 
nations were not inclined to respect their claims. We saw 
(p. 70) that they were quickly crowded out of the Connecticut 
Valley by the English. They were next troubled by the en- 
croachments of the Swedes. In 1638 a colony from Sweden 
settled at Christiana, in Delaware, near the spot where the 
city of Wilmington now stands. The newcomers built a fort 
there and began a brisk trade in furs. This was plainly tres- 
passing upon Dutch territory, for there was already one Dutch 
settlement at Lewes (in Delaware) and another at Gloucester 
(in New Jersey). The Swedes were informed by the Dutch 
that they were intruders, but they paid little attention to the 
warning. They bought lands of the Indians, extended their 
settlements, and in a few years a New Sweden was beginning 
to rise in the Delaware region. But the power of Sweden in 
the New World was soon to be broken. In 1655, Peter Stuy- 
vesant, governor of New Netherlands, led an overwhelming 
force against the Swedish settlement and compelled it to sur- 
render. The settlers were not disturbed in their possessions, 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 93 

but they were obliged to acknowledge the Dutch as their law- 
ful rulers. 

It was not long before the Dutch themselves were treated The 

. End 

precisely as they had treated the Swedes. The Navigation Act of tto 

' -' -^ ° Dutch 

of 1651 (p. 81) brought on war (1653) between England and Rule 
Holland. The news of the war alarmed the Dutch of New 
Amsterdam and preparations were made for defending the 
city. One of the defenses was a wall built across the island. 
This structure gave a name to the famous Wall Street of 
to-day, but its strength as a defense was never tested, because 
peace between the two nations was quickly made (1654). The 
peace lasted ten years and then was broken by the action of 
Charles II, who in 1664 decided to push the claims which Eng- 
land had always made to the territory held by the Dutch. He 
sent out four armed vessels to take possession of New Neth- 
erlands in the name of his brother, James, the Duke of York. 
The fleet appeared before New Amsterdam in August 1664, 
and its commander, Richard Nichols, demanded the surrender 
of the town, promising that if surrender was made no harm 
would be done to life or property. Resistance upon the part 
of the Dutch would have been madness, for their poor guns 
would have availed little against the powerful broadsides of 
the English. The surrender was made without a shot being 
fired by either side. The Dutch flag which waved over the 
fort was hauled down and the rule of the Dutch in New Neth- 
erlands came peacefully to an end.^ It was bound to come to 
an end soon, for the Dutch in America could not long hold 
out against the numbers that were against them. There were 
in all New Netherlands in 1664 less than 10,000 inhabitants, 
and nearly half of these were Englishmen. North of the 
Dutch, in New England, there were about 50,000 Englishmen, 
and south of them in Virginia and Maryland there were 50,- 
000 more Englishmen. So, if the English King had not taken 
New Netherlands by force, English colonists would doubt- 
less have overrun the country and crowded the Dutch out. 

1 In 1673 New York was recaptured by the Dutch and remained in their 
possession for fifteen months. In 1674 it was restored to the English. 



94 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Transfer 



Represen- 
tative 
Govern- 
ment 



The 

County- 
Town- 
ship 

Type for 
Local 
Govern- 
ment 



Changes 
in 

Govern- 
ment 



With the Dutch out of the way, the English came into full 
possession of the .Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia to 
Florida. 

The Duke of ^'ork was made proprietor of the conquered 
])rovince, and New Netherlands soon took the name of New 
York. The city of New Amsterdam was also called New 
York. The Dutch officials gave up their places to English 
officials and a code of English laws was substituted for the 
Dutch laws. Upon the whole, the change from Dutch to 
English rule did not profoundly affect the affairs of the 
colony. 

The charter of the proprietor enabled him to make laws for 
the colony without the consent of the freemen, but such an 
arrangement was contrary to English notions of civil liberty. 
The people soon began to clamor for a share in lawmaking, 
and before the close of the seventeenth century New York, like 
the other colonies, had an assembly consisting of representa- 
tives chosen by the freemen. 

There was also evolved in early New York a system of local 
government which has had far-reaching influence. Under a 
legal code known as the Duke's laws, the freeholders of a 
town were permitted to elect a governing board for the town 
(or township). By 1683 counties were organized, and in 1703 
it was provided that the governing body of the county should 
consist of a board of supervisors elected by the townships, each 
township being represented on the county board by one su- 
pervisor. Here was the origin of the county-township sys- 
tem of local government, which prevails in so many States 
and wdiich in many respects is superior to any other system 
which the Teuton mind has yet produced. 

When James II became king (in 1685) New York passed 
from the position of a proprietary to a royal province. James 
as king could do many things that he could not do when he 
was only a proprietor, and he used his new accession of power 
to the fullest extent. lie deprived his colony of its represen- 
tative assembly and set out to rule in the most despotic fash- 
ion. He annexed New York to New England, and (in 1688) 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 95 

over this Dominion of New England — as the amalgamated 
colonies were styled — he placed Andros as Governor. But 
the power of Andros lasted no longer in New York than it 
did in New England (p. JJ). When James II abdicated his 
throne, his successor (William III) sent out a new governor^ 
to New York and the colony remained a royal province until 
the Revolution. 

34. NEW JERSEY. 

The Duke of York began to give New Netherlands away The 
... Begin- 

even before the provmce was actually in his possession. In ningsof 

June 1664 — several months before the surrender of New Jersey 
Amsterdam — he granted to Sir George Carteret and John 
Lord Berkeley, favorites who had shared in the Carolina grant 
(p. 86), all the land between the Hudson and the Delaware, 
the grant including the territory which is now the State of 
New Jersey. The settlement of this region began before the 
English came. The Dutch had already established trading- 
posts at Bergen — now Jersey City — at Hoboken, and at Wee- 
hawken, while on the Delaware there were the settlements of 
the Dutch and the Swedes. The settlement of New Jersey — 
Nova Cresarea — under its English masters began in 1665, 
when Fhilip Carteret, a cousin of Sir George and the first 
governor of the province, founded the town, which, in honor of 
his wife, he called Elizabeth. In 1667 Newark was founded by 
settlers from New Haven. In the same year, some emigrants 
from Massachusetts settled in Woodbridge. Thus in the 
settlement of northern New Jersey the Puritan influence was 
strong. Colonists poured into the new province so rapidly that 
by 1668 it was thought necessary to hold at Elizabeth an as- 
sembly consisting of delegates from the several towns. This 

1 After Andros was driven from power in New York, Jacob Leisler, a wealthy 
merchant, secured control of affairs. When the new governor arrived (1691) 
Leisler refused to recognize his authority, and for his obstinacy he was hanged as 
a traitor. Leisler had a strong following among the common people and the 
treatment which he received was regarded by many as foul and unjust. The 
incident created a bitter feeling between the lower and upper classes and the 
memory of Leisler's execution remained for many years as a " legacy of hate " 
to vex the colony. 



96 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



East 

Jersey 

and 

West 

Jersey 



The 

Conces- 
sions and 
Agree- 
ment 



was the beginning of representative government in New Jer- 
sey. 

For ten years the two proprietors held New Jersey as 
joint owners of an undivided estate. In 1674, Lord Berkeley 
sold his half interest to two Quakers, John Fen wick and Ed- 
ward Byllynge. This sale led to the division of the province 
into East New Jersey and West New Jersey, the dividing line 

running from Little Egg 
Harbor northwesterly to 
the junction of the Dela- 
ware River with the 41st 
parallel of latitude. East 
New Jersey continued to 
have Carteret as its pro- 
prietor, while West New 
Jersey had the two 
Quakers as its proprietors. 
Fenwick and Byllynge 
could not agree as to their 
respective interests in West 
New Jersey, so William 
Penn, a prominent 
Quaker, was called in to 
judge between the two. 
After the dispute was set- 
tled, the colonization of 
West New Jersey began 
in earnest. In 1677 two hundred colonists, chiefly Quak- 
ers, arrived on the banks of the Delaware and laid the founda- 
tions of Burlington. These colonists brought with them a 
document known as the Concessions and Agreement, which 
was signed by William Penn and one hundred and fifty oth- 
ers. This document, which was probably drawn up by Penn 
himself, was the " broadest, sanest, and most equitable char- 
ter draughted for any body of colonists up to this time." It 
provided for an assembly elected by the people and stated 
clearly the rights which the colonists were to enjoy : abso- 




New Jersey. 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 97 

iiile religious freedom, the right of trial by jury, no arbitrary 
imprisonment for debt, publicity of courts of justice, and the 
right of petition. Under this liberal government the new 
colony prospered. A fruit plantation was started at Cape 
May, and a pottery at Burlington. The last named town built 
up an extensive trade and for some time was a rival of Phila- 
delphia. 

Both the Jerseys made excellent progress, but in East New Changes 
Jersey there was for a long time a great deal of trouble be- Go^ern- 
tween the Carterets and the governor of New York, who con- 
tended that his authority extended over New Jersey. When 
the dispute was finally settled (in 1680) the Carterets were left 
in full possession of their province. They were, however, un- 
able to hold it long. In 1682 it was sold for debt and passed 
into the hands of William Penn and eleven Quaker associates. 
Thus in both the Jerseys in the early days there was a strong 
Quaker influence. In 1688 both East New Jersey and West 
New Jersey were annexed to the Dominion of New England, 
just as New York had been the year before, but after 1689 
the two colonies were restored to their respective proprietors. 
They remained separate provinces until 1702, when the pro- 
prietors surrendered their rights to the Crown, and the two 
provinces were united as one royal province. After this union 
New Jersey had its own assembly, but its governors were the 
same as those of New York until 1738, when it was given a 
governor of its own. With this change New Jersey became 
a distinct and separate royal province and remained such until 
the Revolution. 

35. PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE. 

The interest which William Penn took in the settlement of Wiiiiam 
New Jersey led him on to greater schemes of colonization. 
In his youth Penn had embraced the doctrines of the Quak- 
ers, or Society of Friends, and had sufifered persecution on 
account of his religious beliefs. He was turned out of col- 
lege and driven from his father's door because of his hereti- 
cal notions. Pie was thrown into prison for writing a book 



Charter 




98 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

that contained what was thought to be dangerous doctrine. 
He was fined for not removing his hat in the presence of the 

court. He was arrested again and 
again for preaching at Quaker 
meetings. These bitter experi- 
ences caused Penn to see in the 
clearest light the rightfulness of 
toleration, and he longed for a 
society where there would be per- 
fect freedom of conscience and 
complete toleration in religious 
matters. 

While he was occupied with the 
afifairs of New Jersey his thoughts 
turned to the great wilderness 
William Penn. which lay on the west side of the 

Delaware, where he believed a " holy experiment " might be 
tried and a godly commonwealth established. In 1680 he 
petitioned Charles H to grant him a tract of land in America, 
penn's " lying north of Maryland, on the east bound by the Delaware 
land River, on the west limited as Maryland, and northward as far 

as the presence of the Indians would permit." The King owed 
a large debt to the Penn estate, which circumstance induced 
His Majesty to confer the grant. Accordingly Penn was made 
the proprietor of a dominion almost as large as England itself. 
The province was given the appropriate name of Pennsylvania. 
Penn's The charter granted to Penn resembled in general that 

granted to Lord Baltimore, but in two particulars the char- 
ters differed widely. In Maryland the laws passed by the 
assembly were valid without the approval of the King, while 
in Pennsylvania the colonial laws had to be sent to England 
for royal approval. Moreover, in the Pennsylvania charter the 
right of Parliament to levy taxes in the colony was asserted, 
while in the Maryland charter no such right was maintained. 
Penn began at once to prepare for his " holy experiment." 
fSri- In 1681 he sent his cousin, William Markham, to Pennsyl- 
^^^^ vania to act as governor until he himself should arrive. To 



The 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES 



99 



the Swedish and Dutch settlers already on his lands he sent 
words of good-will and encouragement, assuring them that 
if they would only be industrious and sober they would not 
be disturbed in their rights or deprived of their freedom. In 
1682 Penn received from the Duke of York a title to the 
three counties (Kent, New Castle, and Sussex) which now 
form the State of Delaware. Penn desired this strip of land 
in order that Pennsylvania might have a free outlet to the 
ocean. By October 1682, Penn himself had arrived in his 
province. Pennsylvania at the time was indeed a forest. Be- 
sides the Indians it contained not more than 500 inhabitants: 
Dutch, Swedish, and English. The only settlement that could 
be called a village was 
Upland (Chester), 
where Markham had 
organized a govern- 
ment and where Penn 
met his first assembly, 
a body of lawmakers 
chosen by the people. 
This assembly formal- 
ly united the three low- 
er counties (Dela- 
ware) to Pennsylva- 
nia, and enacted a code 
of laws for the govern- 
ment of the province. 
This code, known as 
the Great Law, was 
prepared and proposed 
by Penn, and its pro- 
visions were character- 




The 

Great 

Law 



Delaware River and Delaware Bay. 



delphia 



ized by temperance, love, and justice. 

From Chester, Penn went to the place which had been Phiia 
chosen as a site for the city of Philadelphia. The " city of 
brotherly love '' at the time consisted of three or four little 
cottages. " The conies were yet undisturbed in their heredi- 



100 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tary burrows ; the deer fearlessly bounded past blazed trees 
that foreboded streets ; and the stranger who wandered from 
the river bank was lost in the forest." Penn took a personal 
interest in the building of his new city, which he saw rise in 
the wilderness as if by the hand of magic. 
Penn One of the first things done by Penn was to establish friendly 

Indians relations with the Indians. " He made himself," says Watson, 
" endeared to the Indians by his marked condescension and ac- 
quiescence in their ways. He walked with them, sat with them 
on the ground, and ate with them of their roasted acorns and 
hominy. At this they expressed their great delight, and soon 
began to show how they could hop and jump ; at which William 
Penn, to cap the climax, sprang up and outdanced them all." 
This personal influence was of immense value to Penn when 
bargaining with the Indians for their lands, for it w^as his 
firm policy not to allow any land to be occupied until the 
consent of the Indians had been secured. In 1683, Penn met 
the chiefs of the leading tribes at Shackamaxon (now Ken- 
sington) and made a treaty of peace with them, the agree- 
ment being that the English and the Indians should " live in 
love as long as the sun gave light." This famous treaty was 
the basis of a friendship that lasted for more than sixty years. 
Growth In 1684, Penn was obliged to return to England, where he 

Pros- remained for fifteen years. During these years he was bit- 

terly attacked by his friends 
and once (in 1692) his col- 
ony was taken from him by 
the King. It was restored 
to him, however, two years 
later. Amid the trials and 
suflferings and injustices of 
this period, Penn was al- 
ways true to his principles ; 

Friends Meeting House in hg was always tolerant, al- 

Pennsylvania. ,, . , ^ 

ways on the side of peace. 

" In a season of passionate and almost universal war, he pub- 
lished a plea for eternal peace among the nations." In 1699 




ware 



THE MIDDLE COLONIES loi 

Penn was once more with his colony. Philadelphia was now 
a thriving city of 10,000 souls, and Pennsylvania had a popu- 
lation of 20,000. In 1701 he returned to England, leaving 
behind him a colony as happy, as well governed, and as pros- 
perous as any that had been planted in America. The " holy 
experiment " thus turned out to be a most distinguished suc- 
cess. 

The settlers in the three lower counties, — that is, in 
Delaware, — were not satisfied to be a part of Pennsylvania, 
and in 1703 they refused to send members to the assembly 
which met at Philadelphia. The next year Delaware es- ^«J,^ 
tablished a legislature of its own. The " charter of privi- 
leges," however, which was the constitution of Pennsylvania, 
continued to be in force in Delaware. And likewise, the 
governor of Pennsylvania continued to be the governor of the 
three lower counties until the Revolution, when Delaware 
organized as a separate State, 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Give a full account of the English conquest of New York : Hal- 
sey II, 153-163; also Andrews, 74-90. 

2. The Swedes and Dutch in New Jersey and Delaware : Halsey II, 
106-113; Hart I, 548-551. 

3. The foundation and development of the Jerseys : Andrews, loi- 
129. 

4. The Quakers in New England: Cheney, 231-236. 

5. Describe the founding of Pennsylvania following the account 
given by Penn himself: Halsey II, 180-187. 

6. The prosecution of Zenger for criticismg the government : Hart 
II, 192-199; Also Channing II, 483-488. (John Zenger was arrested 
(1735) for publishing attacks upon the government but was acquitted 
upon the ground that what he published was true. The result of the 
trial was a great victory for the freedom of the press.) 

7. Give an account of Leisler's Rebellion: Hart I, 544-547; An- 
drews, 283-287. 

8. Dates for chronological table : 1664, 1665, 1682. 

9. Special Reading. J. C. Doyle, English Colonies in America, Vol. 
IV. John Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. Ban- 
croft I, 528-585. S. G. Fisher, The Making of Pennsylvania. 



XI 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 

With the settlement of the Middle Colonies the English conquest of 
the Atlantic coast was completed. The closing years of the seven- 
teenth century saw a solid wall of English civilization extending along 
the seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida. What was the character of 
this civilization? What was accomplished by a century of hard work, 
of wood-chopping, building, plowing, and planting? What kind of a 
country was British America in 1700? 



26. THE AREA OF SETTLEMENT; POPULATION: 

AND CITIES. 



TOWNS 



The 

Trontier 

Line 



in New 
Eng- 
land; 



in New 
York 
and 
Penn- 
sylvania ; 



in Vir- 
ginia; 



In 1700 the settled portion of British America consisted of 
a strip of seaboard territory which was more than 1200 mites 
in length, but which in many places extended into the interior 
only a few miles. At no point did the settled area extend 
more than a hundred miles back from the sea. With the 
exception of Pennsylvania, the colonies were all maritime 
communities. Still, the Frontier Line — the line which di- 
vided the settled country from the wilderness, civilization from 
savagery — was all the time moving back further and further 
from the coast. In New England, settlers had pushed out 
into the forest as far as Haverhill and Andover, and had crept 
up the Connecticut Valley almost as far as what is now the 
\^ermont line. In New York for a long time the settlement of 
the interior proceeded very slowly. Nevertheless, the fur 
trade had taken men up the Hudson and out into the Mohawk 
Valley, where settlements had been made as far west as 
Schenectady. In Pennsylvania, of course, only the outer 
edge of Penn's great forest had been subdued by the white 
man's ax. In Maryland and Virginia, however, the planta- 
tions extended along the rivers as far as the piedmont region, 

102 







The Frontier line 
^ thus: _^ 



e Frontier line in 1700 is shown 
thus: .___^^^^^_i 

(This line marks t 
be fullv settled ai 



\st. AoSUBtina 



(This line marks the extreme western edge of 
the fully settled areas but takes no account of 
military posts or detached settlements.) 

50 100 900 300 



Statute Miles 



THE M.-N. WORKS 



The Frontier Line in 1700. 
103 



I04 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

caro^^ and even a part of the upland country had been brought under 
Unas cultivation. In the Carolinas, the Frontier Line was still very 

close to the seaboard, closer in fact, than in any of the other 
colonies. Only in the Albemarle region and around Charles- 
ton had settlers pushed westward and inland more than a 
few miles from the coast. Between Albemarle and Charles- 
ton there were long stretches of the seaboard that were still 
uninhabited. 
Popuia- The combined population of the twelve colonies in 1700 

was, according to the most reliable estimates, about 250,000, 
not counting Indians, but including negro slaves. In New 
Hampshire there were about 5,000; in Massachusetts, 60,000; 
in Rhode Island, 5,000; in Connecticut, 20,000; in New York, 
25,000; in New Jersey, 15,000; in Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
30,000; in Maryland, 30,000; in Virginia, 60,000, and in the 
Carolinas, 10,000. Where so few people were scattered 
over such an immense area the civilization could be only a 
Towns rural one. Towns and cities were, indeed, few and far be- 
cities tween. Along the Maine coast there were some villages, but 
nothing that could be called a town. In New Hampshire, 
Portsmouth was a " real town where merchants lived in spa- 
cious houses and gave splendid treats to their guests." Bos- 
ton was the largest and most important place in New Eng- 
land, its population being about 7,000. From Boston one 
could travel to New York and not pass through a single place 
that could be called a city. The population of New York 
city was a little more than 5,000. In New Jersey the only 
town of importance was Burlington, which was " a very nice 
borough built in the Dutch fashion.'' Philadelphia, although 
but recently founded, was already the largest city in America. 
Its population was over 10,000, and it was growing at a rapid 
rate. In Maryland and Virginia life was almost entirely rural. 
Norfolk, indeed, was a busy little seaport, but it was in no 
sense a city. In North Carolina the largest places were mere 
villages. South Carolina had a real city in Charleston, a 
place which " concentrated in itself the economic, social, and 
political activity of the colony to which it belonged." 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 



lOS 




m 



m 



37. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS. 

The chief occupation in all the colonies was farming. In Agricui- 
. . . t'l'^c 

the Carolinas maize and rice were the chief products. In 

Virginia and Maryland, on every farm, tobacco was the staple 
crop. In the northern colonies, maize, wheat, potatoes, and 
fruits were cultivated. But the farmer in colonial times did 
a great deal more than till the soil. He hunted in the woods, 
he fished along the banks of the streams, he trapped the fur- 
bearing animals, he felled trees and made rough planks, 
staves, and shingles. So the colonial farmer had something 
besides grain to sell, for there was 
always a good market for his fish, 
his furs, and his timber. In New 
England and in the Middle Colonies 
the farms, as a rule, were small. 
In New York, however, this was 
not the case. The great estates 
which under Dutch rule had been 
granted to the patroons (p. 91) 
were handed on to the English, who 
themselves followed the plan of 
granting vast tracts of land to 
single owners. Some of these New 
York estates were of enormous 
size, the Van Rensselaer plantation 

alone containing more than a million acres and comprising 
several townships. In the South, also, as we have seen (p. 
79), the plantations were very large. 

On the small farms in New England and the Middle Colo- Ths 
nies most of the work could be done by the owner of the system 
farm and his children. Often the farmers helped one an- 
other. " Was a house to be erected," says Bogart, " a barn to 
be raised, or a ship built and launched, the settler called upon 
his neighbors to assist him in the larger operations that were 
beyond his strength or skill, or that called for the associated 
effort of several workers. The typical event that called for 




li 



ttmmrmammrr^ 
Old sawmill. 



J 



I06 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

this cooperative system of labor was a house- or barn-raisiiig; 
this was made a social occasion, the women attending to pro- 
vide a bountiful repast, while the men strove with one an- 
other in a spirit of emulation." In the north when help was 
needed on the farms, free laborers as a rule were employed. 

sia- But not always, for slavery existed in all the colonies. North 

^^'^ of Maryland, however, slaves formed only a small part of the 

whole population and were found chiefly in the towns. In 
riiiladeljihia and New York there was a considerable slave pop- 
ulation. Slave labor was also employed on the great farms 
bordering on the Hudson. In New England slaves were few 
in number and a sentiment against slavery was already show- 
ing itself. In 1701 Samufci Sewall of Massachusetts wrote a 
vigorous pamphlet denouncing slavery as a wicked and un- 
christian institution. In the South slaves formed a large part 
of the population ; thirty per cent, in Maryland, forty per cent, 
in Virginia, and more than fifty per cent, in South Carolina. 
In North Carolina slavery had made but little headway, hardly 
Qne person in twenty being a slave. 

rur Next to farming the most important occupation was fur- 

trading. In the seventeenth century furs were used not only 
as w^earing apparel but also for bedclothing and carpets. 
There was accordingly a strong demand in Europe for Ameri- 
can furs and the colonial fur-trade was highly profitable. 
This trade was not confined to any one section, for in every 

rishing colony the forests abounded in fur-bearing animals. Fishing 
was also a leading industry. The most extensive fisheries 
were in New England, where from the beginning (p. 61) 
the chief source of wealth was found in maritime pursuits. 
In Massachusetts alone hundreds of vessels and thousands 
of seamen were engaged in the cod and whale fisheries. 

Shin. Another flourishing colonial industry was ship-building. 

^g " American ship yards had important advantages over those 

of Great Britain. Materials of the best quality were to be 
had at little cost. Masts of fir and planks of oak were sup- 
plied from primeval forests, everywhere there was pitch 
pine for the making of tar and turpentine, and hemp 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 107 

for cordage was soon j^rovided. Tlic rivers furnished water 
power for sawmills and brought lumber down to the harbors 
where the ships were built and launched."^ Most of the ship- 
building was carried on in New England. In Massachusetts 
nearly every week three newly-built vessels were launched. 

Manufactures had made little progress. England had manu- Manu- 

facture 

factures of her own, and they were the breath of her 
industrial life. So she did not want colonial manufactures 
to flourish. She wanted the colonists to buy goods, not 
make them (p. 43). Nor did England intend that the 
colonies should be independent in respect to matters of 
industry and trade. " I declare," said Lord Cornbury, one of 
the governors of New York, " that all these colonies which 
are but twigs belonging to the main tree, ought to be kept 
entirely dependent upon and subservient to England, and 
that can never be if they are suffered to go on in 
the notions they have, that as they are Englishmen so they 
may set up the same manufactures here as people may 
in England ; for the consequence will be that if once they can 
clothe themselves without the help of England, they who are 
already not very fond of submitting to government, would 
soon think of putting into execution designs they had long 
harbored in their breasts." 

In this spirit England took measures to nip colonial manu- England's 
factures in the bud. In 1600, Parliament passed the Woolen sive 

Policy 
Act, a law which made it unlawful to send woolen goods out of 

the colony, or from one colony to another, or from one place to 

another in the same colony, for purposes of sale. This meant 

that colonial-made cloth could not be sold at all ; if any was 

made it must be used in the household in which it was woven.- 

The policy of restricting the colonies to the production of The 
. , . , . , . , . Men- 

raw materials was m accordance with an economic doctrine — tiie 

Theory 

iComan: "Industrial History of the United States," p. 8i. 

2 There was one manufacturing industry, however, which flourished in New 
England from the beginning. This was the tanning of hides and the manu- 
facture of shoes. Lynn was famous as a place where good shoes were made, 
and Massachusetts made all the shoes her people could use and had a surplus to 
sell to other colonies. 



Mercan* 



lo8 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

known as the Mercantile Theory — which prevailed through- 
out Europe at the time. According to this theory if a nation 
is to be rich and great and strong it must have a large popu- 
lation, a large navy, and a large volume of money in its treas- 
ury. In order to attain these ends " each state ought to in- 
crease its available wealth by monopolizing specie wherever 
found; by fostering trade for the sake of increasing the cus- 
toms revenue, and by creating a favorable balance of trade so 
that exports, which brought coin into the realm, might exceed 
imports, bought from other countries with money and hence 
drawing money out of the Kingdom." How was this balance 
of trade to be secured? By importing only raw materials and 
working these up at home into manufactured articles and sell- 
ing them abroad. Thus when England confined the colonies to 
raw materials she did so not with the view of oppressing the 
colonists, but for the purpose of increasing her power in the 
only way that she then believed it could be increased. 

Eoads Trade w\is confined chiefly to the seaports. Road-build- 

ing on a large scale had not yet begun. In Massachusetts 
the principal towns were joined by roads, and by 1704 
Madam Knight could travel on horseback from Boston to 
New York, but she was compelled to say that the journey was 
one of great discomforts and inconveniences. In New York 
the roads were so bad that vehicles could not move on them 
and there were only two coaches in the whole colony. From 
New York southward the traveler on horseback might make 
his way safely as far as Norfolk, but it was still impossible to 
make such a journey in a wheeled vehicle. Still the means 
of communication permitted the operation of a postal system. 
The colonial post-office had been established and a letter could 
be carried from Boston to Williamsburg in Virginia. 

Exports 15ut if the cross-country trade was difficult, transportation 

by water was everywhere easy. In Virginia and the Caro- 
linas the waterways were so satisfactory that little effort was 
made to build roads. The waterways of the Middle Colonies 
and of New England were also favorable to trade. Commerce 
accordingly flourished along the whole length of the colonial 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 109 

seaboard. In South Carolina the exports were rice and in- 
digo ; in North Carolina it was naval stores : tar, pitch, and 
turpentine; in Maryland and Virginia the staple export was 
tobacco ; the Middle Colonies sold grain, lumber products, 
hides, and furs. In New England trade was chiefly with the 
West Indies. To these islands the merchants of Massachu- The 

SIevg 

setts and Rhode Island sent fish, salted meats, barrel-staves, Trade 
and lumber, receiving in exchange molasses, much of which 
was manufactured into rum. The rum was carried to the 
Guinea coast and exchanged for captive negroes, most of whom 
were carried to the West Indies and exchanged for molasses. 
Some of the slaves were brought to Virginia and a few to 
New England. The profit of this triangular trafific was some- 
times enormous. " A slave purchased in Africa for 100 gal- 
lons of rum, worth ten pounds, brought from twenty to fifty 
pounds when offered for sale in America." 

The greatest drawback to commerce in the early colonial Colonial 
days was the lack of money. Trade with the Indians was °^^^ 
carried on largely through the use of wampum or shell-money. 
In no colony was there much gold or silver. Much of the 
trading had to be effected by barter, that is, one commodity 
had to be exchanged for another, corn for fish, a horse for 
a cow, a pair of shoes for a coat. In Maryland and Virginia 
tobacco was used as a substitute for money. In New York 
wampum often passed as money among the settlers. In New 
England corn was used as a medium of exchange. Massachu- 
setts in 1652 established a mint at which shillings and sixpence 
were coined, and the pine-tree shillings coined at this mint 
had a wide circulation. In 1690 Massachusetts set the exam- 
ple of issuing paper money, and it was not long before paper 
currency became quite common not only in Massachusetts but 
in the other colonies also. 

38. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS. 

By 1700, religion in the colonies was no longer the powerful ReUgion 
element in the lives of the people that it was in the days of 
Winthrop and Calvert and Williams. The colonists almost 



no 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



in the 
South; 



in the 
Middle 
Colonies: 



in New 
England 



Lattii 
Puritan- 
ism 



Education 



everywhere were still a highly religious folk, but they went 
about their church duties in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. There 
was more toleration than in the early colonial days, and there 
was a greater number of denominations of different faiths. 
In Virginia and the Carolinas, the Church of England — the 
Episcopal Church — was the leading denomination, although 
in these colonies there was a large number of Quakers and 
Baptists. In Maryland the Catholics were still strong in num- 
bers, but the ruling classes belonged to the Episcopal Church. 
In Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, the Quakers were 
the most powerful sect, although Lutherans, Baptists, and 
Presbyterians had gained a foothold in Pennsylvania. New 
York was as cosmopolitan in the matter of religion as it 
was in other matters. There was in the colony almost every 
denomination that could be mentioned, but there was no one 
church that greatly overshadowed the others. In New Eng- 
land the change that had taken place in religion was greater 
than in any other section. In Massachusetts, which was the 
heart of New England, the power of the old Puritan theocracy 
(p. 74) was waning and Puritans were liberal and more 
tolerant. Indeed, it was said that Boston by 1700 was becom- 
ing " a cemetery of lost ideals." Puritanism still ruled, it 
is true, but its rule was less harsh and severe. " The Massa- 
chusetts merchant," says Doyle, " could now build a fine house. 
He could choose furniture made of costly woods. He could 
cover his sideboard with valuable silver-plate. He could im- 
port an English coach and horses. He and his family could 
dress expensively in imported stuffs." But it must not 
be thought that the old Puritan spirit had died out completely. 
Life in New England was still a sober and somber affair. 
Amusements were largely frowned upon : dancing was not yet 
allowed, stage plays were prohibited, and the players of foot- 
ball found little favor in the eyes of the rulers. 

In most of the colonies education had made but little prog- 
ress. In the Carolinas no schools at all iiad been established. 
In Virginia there were perhaps half-a-dozen private ones 
where the elementary branches were taught, but there were 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 in 

no public schools. The Old Dominion, however, could boast in the 
of William and Mary College, which was founded in 1693. 
In Maryland there was an occasional private school, but no 
regular public schools had as yet been established. In the 
middle colonies education was faring better. The Assembly of 
Pennsylvania in 1682 passed a law providing that all who had 
charge of children should see that they were taught to 
read and write by the time they were twelve years old, and 
numerous records show that the law was enforced. In 1697 i^ t^e 
the Penn Charter School of Philadelphia was opened. In ^ofonfes- 
New Jersey a free public school was established by the Dutch 
at Bergen (Jersey City) in 1662, but the tax-payers did not 
contribute willingly to the enterprise. Efforts were made in 
New Jersey in the latter part of the seventeenth century to 
establish a system of public schools, but the century closed 
without any success in that direction. In New York educa- 
tion had flourished under the Dutch, but the English were 
slow in establishing schools. In 1702, however, a public school 
was established, the schoolmaster securing a salary of £50, 
raised by taxation. In New England schools were becoming in New 
quite common. In 1634 the Latin Grammar School was es- •^'^s^*°<^ 
tablished at Boston, and two years later Harvard College 
was founded. Yale was founded in 1701. In 1639 the first 
public school in America supported by taxation was estab- 
lished at Dorchester, Massachusetts. The idea of maintaining 
schools at public expense gained ground, and by the end 
of the seventeenth century, at least a score of public schools 
had been established in New England. 

In respect to government, the colonies by 1700 could be Govern- 
grouped into three classes, charter colonies, proprietary col- ™®°* 
onies, and royal or provincial colonies. Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, and Rhode Island were the charter colonies. Here charter 
the charter — granted by the King — was the written funda- ('lyo^^)®^ 
mental law under which the government was organized and 
from which officers received their authority. The charters of 
these colonies resembled the State constitutions of to-day. 
Indeed, the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island served 



112 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Proprie- 
tary 

Colonies 
(1700) 



Eoyal 

Colonies 

(1700) 



The 
Charters 



Constitu- 
tions 



The 
Three 
Depart- 
ments 
of Gov- 
ernment 



The 

Colonial 
Legisla- 
ture 



as State constitutions for many years. Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina were 
the proprietary colonies. Here the colony was governed by 
the proprietor under a charter or patent granted by the King. 
Thus the proprietor stood in the place of the King. Inasmuch 
as the proprietary charter itself granted certain rights and 
privileges to the people, the government of the proprietary 
colonies did not differ much from that of the charter col- 
onies. New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia 
were royal or provincial colonies. Here the colony was under 
the direct control of the King. No charter stood between 
the King and the colony. Inasm.uch as the King allowed 
the royal colonies to have substantially the same form of 
government that was enjoyed by the other colonies, the royal 
colonies differed little from the proprietary or charter col- 
onies. 

In fact, by 1700 the government in all the colonies was pretty 
much the same. The groundwork of government was the 
charter, or the royal grant or concession. This was regarded 
as a pledge of good faith on the part of the home govern- 
ment and it was the doctrine in the colonies that neither the 
King nor his officers could rightfully violate the provisions 
of the charter. Even a law of the colonial legislature was 
regarded as void if it was contrary to the charter. Thus 
the colonists by 1700 were forming a habit of looking to a 
written instrument (the charter, or royal grant, or conces- 
sion) as the fundamental law which all officers of government 
as well as all citizens must obey. 

In all the colonies government was organized on the principle 
that power should flow in three streams, and in every col- 
ony there were three great departments, the legislative, the 
executive, and the judicial. The legislative branch in nearly 
all the colonies consisted of the lower house elected by the 
voters, and of a small upper house — usually known as the 
council — appointed by the governor. The legislature could 
pass any law that was not contrary to the law of England. 
The lower house had full control in respect to the raising 



THE COLONIES IN 1700 113 

and spending of money, and this power had the effect of mak- 
ing the lower branch of the legislature the supreme ruling 
force in the colony. The governor could veto a law of the Governor 
legislature, but as his salary was regulated by the lower 
house, he did not often interfere with the passing of bills, 
for when he did interfere he was likely to have trouble in 
getting his salary. At the head of the executive department 
was the governor, a most important personage in colonial life. 
In Connecticut and Rhode Island the governor was elected 
by the people ; in the other colonies he was appointed either 
by the proprietor or by the King. The council, besides actmg 
as one of the branches of the legislature, assisted the gov- 
ernor in the discharge of his duties. In every colony there 
was a judicial system, the judges of which were appointed 
by the governor, or by the King through the governor. In 
all the colonies the right of suffrage was made dependent upon suffrage 
the ownership of a certain amount of property, and only the 
male adults could vote. In every colony there was a system 
of local government for the management of local affairs. In Loca! 
every colony there were counties and county officers. In the ment 
Southern Colonies the county was the only local government. 
In New England and to some extent in the Middle Colonies 
also, townships (towns) were established within the county 
to attend to the affairs of the immediate neighborhood. 

The powers exercised by the colonial governments were coiouiai 
very large. The colonial legislature could legislate on all govern- 
matters pertaining to the welfare of the colony, but it could ^^^ 
not infringe upon the law of England. If a colonial law 
v/as contrary to the law of England it could be vetoed by 
the King. The royal veto was sometimes brought into use, 
but in most things each colony was a self-governing community 
left to manage its own affairs in its own way ; it was a 
recognized principle that the colonies might legislate for them- 
selves as they pleased, provided their laws were consistent 
with allegiance to the Crown and were not contrary to those 
acts of Parliament in which the colonies were expressly men- 
tioned. 



114 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Colonial agriculture: Bogart, 36-48. 

2. Colonial industry : Bogart, 53-63. 

3. Describe the system of land tenure in the several colonies : Bo- 
gart, 48-50. 

4. In what way did the cultivation of tobacco effect the economic 
organization of Virginia? Coman, 56-57; Bogart, 43-45. 

5. Why was slavery introduced into the southern colonies? Halsey 
II, 75-77- 

6. Describe the several systems of labor which prevailed in the 
colonies : Bogart, 65-74. 

7. What action did England take in order to maintain the Mercan- 
tile system? Bogart, 90-103; also Howard, 47-67. 

8. The Lords of Trade: Andrews, 26-33. (The Lords of Trade 
was a standing committee of the king's council appointed in 1675 for 
the supervision of the colonies. In 1696 it was superseded by a body 
known as the Board of Trade and Plantations which henceforth had 
the management of colonial affairs.) For the establishment of the 
Board of Trade see Hart II, 129-131. 

9. Social Progress in the Colonies: Bassett, 134-158. 

10. Local Government: Forman, 72-78, 195-201. 203-207, 210-214. 

11. Read in the class New England's opinion of itself: Hart I, 451- 
452. 

12. Early Colonial education : Dexter, 1-72. 

13. Dates for chronological table: 1636, 1696. 

14. Describe the town of Philadelphia as it appeared about 1700; the 
town of New York ; the town of Boston. Compare the organization of 
local government in New England about 1700 with that which prevailed 
in the Southern Colonies. Give an account of church going in New Eng- 
land in Puritan times. Describe the family life of the Puritans. Show 
that up to 1700 settlements followed in the main the course of navigable 
streams. 

15. Special Reading. O. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Govern- 
ment. Andrews, 288-307. H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the 
Seventeenth Century. Bancroft II, 3-85. J. L. Bishop, History of 
American Manufactures, Vol I, Alice Morse Earle, Home Life in 
Colonial Days. 



XII 

A HALF-CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH (1700-1750) 

In the last chapter we saw that by lyoo a second England had been 
carried across the sea and firmly planted on the Atlantic Coast. In 
this chapter we shall trace the course of colonial development during 
the first half of the eighteenth century. To what extent was the area 
of settlement enlarged between 1700 and 1750? What important acces- 
sions to the population were made during this period? What advance 
was made in the work of colonization ? 

39. PUSHING BACK THE FRONTIER LINE. 

After the founding of Pennsylvania a half-century passed The 
before another colony was founded. During this interval Line 
it was more desirable to develop the existing colonies than 
to organize new ones. The development consisted mainly in 
pushing back the Frontier Line and bringing vacant lands 
under cultivation. 

In New England the settlement of the back country was in New 
checked by a series of wars ^ which for three-fourths of a 
century — from 1689 to 1763 — kept the French and English 
in America in a state of bitter enmity. During much of this 
time the Frenchmen of Canada and their Indian allies were 
lurking along the New England borders, ready to destroy 
any settlements that the English might make. The Frontier 
Line, therefore, in New England could advance but slowly. 
The chief gains upon the wilderness were made in Connecti- 
cut and in western Massachusetts where the frontier was not 
exposed to the depredations of the French. By 1750 settle- 
ments had crept up the Housatonic River to the Berkshires, 
and the towns of Litchfield, Great Barrington, and Westfield 
had been established. Thus the movement begun by Hooker 

» These wars will be the principal theme of the following chapter. 

115 



Il6 



VDVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



in New 
York; 



In Vir- 
ginia 



(p. 70) iiad in the course of a century extended the area 
of settlement westward to the New York line and had brought 
practically all of Connecticut and Massachusetts within the 
pale of civilization. 

In New York expansion was checked in much the same 
way that it was checked in New England. On the north- 
ern border of New York were the hostile Canadians. In 
central and western New York the Iroquois tribes blocked 
the progress of the white men. Moreover, the land-policy 
(p. 91) of New York was unfavorable to growth. So, set- 
tlements in New York were carried into the interior even 
more slowly than they were in New England. We saw that 
by 1700 Schenectady was the outpost of civilization. Fifty 
years later settlements had been pushed westward hardly 
further than the site of the city of Utica. 

It was in Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania that 
the area settled was extended most rapidly. In 1700 the 
Frontier Line in Virginia was fifty miles east of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains; by 1750 the line had been carried over 
the mountains into the valley beyond. In 1716 Alexander 
Spottswood, the governor of Virginia and a most energetic 
pioneer, took with him a party of fifty men and pushed out 
into the Shenandoah Valley. Every day's march was en- 
livened by the chase, and at night " red wine and white wine, 
rum, champagne, and cider, were mingled with game, story, 
song, and laughter." Spottswood entered the valley near the 




Spottswood's Route: The first road to the West. 



A HALF-CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH 117 

present site of Port Republic, and on the bank of the Shen- 
andoah River buried a bottle in which there was a paper 
declaring that the river and the valley belonged to the King 
of Great Britain. The French at this time, as will be learned 
more fully in the next chapter, were in the Mississippi Valley 
building forts and extending their power eastward as fast 
as they could and as far as they dared, and it was the purpose 
of Spottswood in taking possession of the Valley to check 
the eastward movement of the French. This expedition of 
Spottswood was the first step in the mighty Westward Move- 
ment which was soon to carry the English clear over the 
Alleghanies and make them masters of the country beyond. 

Although the first settlers in the Shenandoah Valley were The 

'^ . -^ Peiinsyl 

Virginians, the settlers who came m largest numbers were vania 

* ° . Dutch 

the Pennsylvania Dutch and Scotch-Irish. The Pennsylvania 

Dutch were not Dutch at all, but were Germans who in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries left the Rhine country 
because it was so often overrun by soldiers and devastated by 
war that life and property were never safe. In 1689 the 
French determined to depopulate completely the Rhine Val- 
ley. " The Commander," says Macaulay, " announced to 
nearly half a million human beings that he granted them three 
days of grace and that within that time they must shift for 
themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep 
in snow, were blocked by innumerable multitudes of men, 
women, and children flying from their homes. The flames 
went up from every market-place, every parish church, every 
county-seat within the devoted province. The fields where 
the corn had been sowed were plowed up. The orchards 
were cut down." These poor hunted creatures fled to America 
where they plowed new fields and planted new orchards. A 
few of them settled in New York in the Mohawk Valley. 
The greater part, however, settled in Pennsylvania, whither 
they began to come soon after the founding of the colony. As 
early as 1692, under their leader, Pastorius, they founded the 
town of Germantown, just north of Philadelphia. In 1700 they 
founded Lancaster. The Germans were excellent pioneers. 



Ii8 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

and the great forests of Pennsylvania fell rapidly before the 
heavy strokes of their axes. By 1730 they had reached the 
Susquehanna, and had founded Harrisburg. They settled the 
Cumberland Valley and moved on down into the Shenandoah 
Valley, where they joined the few Virginians who were al- 
ready there. In 1732 a clearing was made near the present 
town of Winchester by one Joist Hite, and from that time 
" the tide of settlers advanced rapidly up to the sources 
of the Shenandoah River and beyond to where the head- 
waters of the James and Roanoke interlace with those of 
the northward-flowing New River." 
The Hand in hand with the Germans in the settlement of west- 

Scotch- 

irish in ern Pennsylvania and the Shenandoah Valley went the Scotch- 

Irelaud . ■ 

Irish. These were not Irish at all but simply Scotchmen 
who had lived in Ireland. Most of them were Presbyterians. 
They had left their homes in the north of Ireland because 
they had not been well treated by the English government. 
In 1698 upon the demand of the English manufacturers, 
Parliament by a series of repressive acts destroyed the 
woolen industry of northern Ireland. "As a result of 
this legislation, twenty thousand of the Protestant citizens 
of Ulster, deprived of employment, left Ireland for America, 
carrying with them the remembrance of how English faith 
plighted to their forefathers had been broken under the 
influence of English greed." This blow to the industry of 
Ulster was followed in the reign of Queen Anne by laws 
which persecuted the Scotch-Irish on account of their re- 
ligious beliefs Hence this poor people had good reason for 
leaving Ireland. 
Scotch- The Scotch-Irish began to emigrate to America in the 

America early years of the eighteenth century and it is probable that 
by 1770 half a million had settled in the colonies. They 
settled in all parts of British America and there was hardly 
a colony upon which they did not leave their mark. But 
most of the Scotch-Irish settled in Pennsylvania. In 1729 
the governor of this colony became alarmed lest these new- 
comers should make themselves the masters of his province. 



A HALF-CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH 119 

" It looks," said the governor, " as if all Ireland would send 
all its inhabitants hither, for last week not less than six 
ships arrived." Sometimes ten thousand Scotch-Irish came 
to Pennsylvania in a single year. There had not been such 
an influx of immigrants since the days of the great Puritan 
migration (p. 64). The Scotch-Irish, however, were the 
best of pioneers and they soon were out on the frontier, mak- 
ing settlements wherever they could find good vacant lands. 
They paid but little attention to the claims of the Indians, 
for they thought " it was against the laws of God and nature 
that so much good land should be idle while so many Chris- 
tians wanted it to work on and to raise their bread." They 
pushed out in Pennsylvania in almost every direction, but 
during the first years of the eighteenth century they moved 
along for the most part with the Germans and settled in the 
Cumberland and Shenandoah V'alleys. In tracing the West- 
ward Movement we meet with Scotch-Irish again and again, 
and wherever we meet them, we always find them in the 
vanguard of American progress. 

Maryland received its full share of the wave of emigra- Westerr 
tion which rolled down from Pennsylvania, and the develop- land 
ment of the western part of the colony was greatly hastened 
by the coming of the German and Scotch-Irish homeseekers. 
In 1745 a Marylander wrote, " You would be surprised to 
see how much the country is improved beyond the mountains, 
especially by the Germans." The pioneers in western Mary- 
land and in the Shenandoah Valley carried their coarsely- 
woven cloth, their grain and apples and butter to the towns 
on the sea-coast To do this it was often necessary to cut 
their way through dense forests, to bridge streams, and es- 
tablish ferries. Thus, the Indian trails and bridle paths were 
widened into wagon roads, the back country was brought 
into communication with the seaboard and trade between 
the East and the West was set into motion. One of the towns 
which early profited by this trade was Baltimore, which was 
laid out in 1730. 

The onward moving mass of Scotch-Irish and German 






'"'■"stable 
Mai?*" 




The Frontier Line in 1740. 

I20 



A HALF-CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH 121 

emigrants did not halt until it reached the interior districts The 
of the Carolinas. After the best lands m the Shenandoah linas 
Valley had been taken, the pioneers pressed on to the val- 
leys of the Yadkin and the Catawba. By 1750 the Frontier 
Line in the Carolinas had been carried back from the coast 
for a distance of more than a hundred miles, and the founda- 
tions of the interior towns of Hillsboro, Salisbury, and Cam- 
den had been laid. 

Thus between 1700 and 1750, the strip of English civiliza- Popula- 
tion along the Atlantic seaboard was greatly widened (Map, 
p. 120) and the Frontier Line in some places was carried 
westward over the Blue Ridge Mountains even to the crest 
of the Alleghanies. With this increase in the area of set- 
tlement there was of course a corresponding increase in 
population. It is probable that in 1750 there were in the 
thirteen colonies a million whites and a quarter of a million 
negro slaves. 

40. GEORGL\. 
A few of the Germans and Scotch-Irish found their way The 
down the valleys to the new colony of Georgia which in ogie- 
1733 was founded on the Carolina coast. But the original °^^^ 
settlers of Georgia were men of pure English blood. The 
settlement of this colony was due to the enterprise of James 
Oglethorpe, who may justly be regarded as the father of 
modern philanthropy, for it was " Oglethorpe who first saw 
and acknowledged that the community was largely respon- 
sible for the sufferings of its poorer members and that to 
remedy and prevent such suffering was a task which needed, 
if not the interference of government, at least some systematic 
and organized effort." The peculiar object of Oglethorpe's 
care was the suffering of the insolvent debtor class. The 
laws of England at this time bore very hard upon a man 
who could not pay his debts, and in the prisons of London 
were men whose only crime was that they could not meet 
their obligations. Oglethorpe proposed to take a colony 
of imprisoned debtors and other unfortunate people and 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Founding 
of 
Georgia 




James Oglethorpe. 



plant it on the Atlantic coast south of Carolina. Such s 
colony, he uri^ud, \^.iuld serve two purposes: it would relieve 

the distress of the people who 
joined in the undertaking, and it 
would protect the southern bound- 
ary of Carolina against the Span- 
iards, who had never wholly re- 
linquished their claims to the 
Carolina coast and were a con- 
stant menace to their English 
neighbors to the northward. The 
scheme of Oglethorpe was received 
with favor and a charter for the 
colony was granted by the King. 

In November 1732, Oglethorpe's 
colonists — 114 in number — left 
England, and by February of the 
following year they were on the 
banks of the Savannah River lay- 
ing the foundations of Savannah and of Georgia. The 
charter under which the colony was planted established a 
modified proprietary government. There were to be a gov- 
ernor and a board of trustees, 
but there was to be no representa- 
tive assembly. All legislative, ex- 
ecutive, and judicial power was 
lodged in the trustees. Ogle- 
thorpe was the first governor of 
the colony as well as its personal 
leader. Although the colonists 
did not possess even the sem- 
blance of self-government, never- 
theless the spirit of democracy 
prevailed. No one could be the 
owner of more than five hun- 
dred acres of land, and all the houses were built exactly 
alike. Even Oglethorpe himself had no better house th^n 




Map of Georgia. 



A HALF-CENTURY OF COLONIAL GROWTH 123 

the others. The rules adopted by the trustees for the 
government of the colony were those of a benevolent des- 
potism. All were required to work a certain number of hours 
in the day at some useful labor, a rule which Oglethorpe 
himself faithfully observed. Negro slavery was absolutely 
forbidden, and intoxicating liquors were prohibited. Indians 
were to be dealt with in the spirit of kindness and justice. 
The religious interests of the colonists were not neglected: 
through the influence of Oglethorpe and the trustees John 
and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield, three of the most 
distinguished preachers of the time, were brought to the 
colony. 

Oglethorpe's experiment quickly showed signs of success. The 
His colonists, who were literally prisoners set free, enjoyed of the 
the novelty of their new surroundings. Building went on with 
great rapidity and Savannah soon had the appearance of a 
city. Within two years after its founding, the colony was 
raising all the grain it needed for itself and had some to ex- 
port. The fame of Georgia spread abroad and soon the col- 
ony began to attract immigrants other than Englishmen. Of 
course it got some of the Germans and some of the Scotch- 
Irish. In 1734 Protestant Germans (Moravians) from Salz- 
burg began to arrive and it is estimated that by 1741 twelve 
' hundred of these people had found homes in the colony. In 
1735 about 180 Scotch Highlanders settled on the Altamaha 
River where they formed the colony of Darien, which served 
as a military post on the southern frontier. 

There was need for such an outpost, for in 1739, when war Georgia 
broke out between Spain and England, the conflict spread to span- 
America and the Georgia settlers were threatened with de- 
struction at the hands of the Spaniards of Florida.. Ogle- 
thorpe, who was a soldier as well as a philanthropist, personally 
conducted the defense of his colony. In 1740, he marched into 
Florida and attacked St. Augustine, but dissension and sick- 
ness among his troops caused him to abandon the siege. In 
i 1742 the Spaniards in turn invaded Georgia and threatened 
the colony on the Altamaha, but Oglethorpe by strategy caused 



124 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

the invaders to withdraw. This was the last time Georgia 
was disturbed by the Spaniards. 
Georgia, In 1743 Oglethorpe left Georgia and never returned. The 
Province colony felt his absence keenly, for he had been its guide, de- 
fender, and support. Now that the colonists were left alone 
they soon became discontented with the rules which the 
trustees had made. They wanted the privilege of holding 
large estates; they wanted to own slaves so that they could 
cultivate rice on a large scale; they desired to import rum; 
they wished to govern themselves by laws of their own 
making. They secured all these demands. In 1749 slavery 
was made legal and the importation of rum was allowed. In 
1750 the restrictions upon the holding of land were removed. 
In 1752 the plan of governing by trustees was given up 
and Georgia was made a royal colony, with a governor and 
council appointed by the King, and an assembly chosen by the 
people. It remained a royal province until the Revolution, 
when it had a population of 50,000 souls. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The coming of the foreigners : Channing II, 401-422. 

2. Immigration and expansion : Greene, 228-248. 

3. Colonial industry and commerce: Channing II, 491-527. 

4. Colonial industry (i 690-1 740) : Greene, 270-282. 

5. Colonial commerce (1690-1740): Greene, 283-300. 

6. Germans in Pennsylvania (Pastorius) : Hart I, 559-562. 

7. For what purposes, according to his own statement, did Ogle- 
thorpe establish the colony of Georgia? Hart II, 110-114. 

8. The founding of Georgia : Greene, 249-270. 

9. Oglethorpe in Georgia : Halsey II, 204-208. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1716, 1733. 

11. What colonial towns were built between 1700 and 1750? (See 
maps pages 103 and 120). 

12. Special Reading. J. A. Doyle, English in America, Vol. V. Oscar 
Kuhns, The German and Swede Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania. 
C. A. Hanna, The ScotcJt-Irish. C. C. Jones, History of Georgia. F. 
W. Halsey, The Old New York Frontier. 



XIII 

THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 

When looked at broadly the struggle for the possession of North 
America presents " a grand historic drama in four acts, in each of 
which one contestant is driven from the field." Thus far we have 
witnessed the performance of two of these acts and have seen two of 
the contestants worsted : we have seen Spain baffled and checked, and 
we have seen Holland driven away. The third act shows France and 
England on the stage, battling for supremacy on the American conti- 
nent. The struggles of the third act will be the main theme of this 
chapter. 

41. THE EXTENSION OF THE FRENCH POWER IN 
AMERICA. 

In the beginning the French came to Canada in very small ^fj^j^ 
numbers (p. 52) and at no time did they come in large Canada 
numbers. Fifty years after the date of its founding Quebec 
had a population of less than eight hundred, while all Canada 
numbered hardly two thousand soiils. However, when in 
1660 Louis XIV entered personally upon his duties as 
King of France, the ambitious young monarch soon .showed 
a desire to strengthen the French power in America. In 1664 
he reorganized the government of Canada, and with the new 
officers there came over 2,000 colonists and 1,200 trained 
soldiers. The population of Canada was thus suddenly doubled 
and the people of the colony were thrilled with the prospect 
of an empire in America which would redound " to the glory 
of God and to the honor of the French King." Explora- 
tions in every direction were carried forward with renewed 
zeal, and every excursion into the wilderness was regarded 
by the French as an extension of their power. 

In 1670 at the Sault Ste. Marie, Saint Lusson, in the pres- Saint 

. Lusson 

2nce of a multitude of savages, took possession in the name 

1 23 



126 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



and 
JoUet 



of Louis XIV of " all the territory from the North to the 
South Sea, extending to the ocean on the west." Three years 
Marquotte later Jolict and Marquette by the route of the Fox- Wisconsin 
waterway reached the Mississippi and in their light canoes 
paddled down the stream as far as the mouth of the Arkansas. 
The travelers at this point felt that they had gone far enough 
to establish the truth that the Mississippi discharged its waters 
not into the Gulf of California as was generally believed, 

but into the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. At the Arkansas, 
Marquette and his com- 
panions decided that it 
would not be prudent to 
follow the Mississippi to 
its mouth lest they fall into 
the hands of the Span- 
iards. So they returned, 
urging their tiresome way 
northward against the 
swift-flowing stream till 
they came to the Illinois 
River, which they as- 
cended to its headwaters, 
where a short portage ex- 
tending through what is 
now the city of Chicago 
enabled them easily to 
reach Lake Michigan. They had consumed four months of 
time, had traversed a distance of about 2,500 miles, and had 
explored a large and most important portion of the Mississippi 
Valley. 

The mission of Marquette, who was a Jesuit priest — a 
member of the Society of Jesus — was to go among the 
Indians and bring them into the Christian fold. His labors 
were typical of the missionary work performed by the Jesuits 
in the settlement of Canada. " The story of the Jesuit 
fathers," says Parkman, " is replete with marvels — miracles of 



Josiiit 

Mijsion- 

aries 




Louis XIV. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 127 

patient suffering and daring enterprise. They were the 
pioneers of Northern America. We see them among the 
frozen forests of Acadia, struggling on snow-shoes with some 
wandering Algonquin horde. . . . Again we see the black- 
robed priest wading among the rapids of the Ottawa, toiling 
with his savage comrades to drag the canoe against the head- 
long waters. Again radiant in the vestments of his priestly 
ofhce he administers the sacramental bread to kneeling crowds 
of plumed and painted proselytes in the forests of the Huron; 
or bearing his life in his hands carries his sacred mission into 
the strongholds of the Iroquois like one who invades unarmed 
a den of angry tigers." 

The work begun by Marquette and Joliet was carried for- La Sau© 
ward to a glorious end by Robert La Salle, the bravest, most 
adventurous and most brilliant of all French pioneers. As 
early as 1670 La Salle, in the hope of discovering a route to 
China — men were still seeking the route which was sought 
by Columbus — had plunged into the wild region south of 
the Great Lakes and had reached the Ohio River. After 
hearing of the voyage of Marquette, La Salle began to plan 
for a vast French empire in America. His plan was to ex- 
plore the Mississippi to its mouth and effect a military oc- 
cupation of the entire Mississippi Valley. If this could be 
done the French flag would wave over a wide expanse of new 
territory, great numbers of savages would be converted to 
the Christian religion, and the fur-trade would be enormously 
increased. The scheme of La Salle was supported by Louis 
XIV and the adventurer was assisted in his undertaking by 
the Government of Canada. In the autumn of 1681 he left 
the southern end of Lake Huron with about fifty French- 
men and Indians and by the following spring he had explored 
the Mississippi clear to its mouth. Landing on one of the 
banks of the great stream. La Salle in 1682 — the same year 
in which Penn took possession of the Delaware region — 
took possession of the surrounding country in the name of 
the King of France, calling it Louisiana in honor of the Lonis- 
King. A leaden plate inscribed with an account of the event 



128 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

and the name of the discoverer was buried in the ground, 
the Tc Dciim was chanted, a cross was erected, and the French 
flag was raised. France was now in possession of the St. 
Lawrence \'alley, the (ireat Lake region, and the Mississippi 
\"alley. The EngHsh l)y this time were the masters of only 
a narrow strip of coast land ; the French liad gained possession 
of the heart of the American continent. 

42. THE BORDER WARFARE OF THE FRENCH AND THE 

ENGLISH. 

The But England and France were jealous rivals for power both 

Iroquois . , , , 1 1 1 • 1 1 • 1 

Alliance m the old world and in the new, and it was only a matter 
of time when the ancient enmity of these two nations would 
show itself in American affairs. As early as 1684 the rela- 
tions between the English colonists and the French in Canada 
were so unfriendly that Governor Dongan of New York 
thought it prudent .to secure as firmly as possible the friend- 
ship of the Iroquois Indians. He held a conference with 
the chiefs of the Five Nations at Albany and entered into 
a treaty which brought the Iroquois under the protection 
of the English King. The Iroquois were now British sub- 
jects and their territory was British territory. This treaty 
was one of the most important ever struck between the white 
men and the redmen. The alliance with the Iroquois gave to 
the English a defense on the frontier which they sorely needed 
and which was to be in the near future a most effectual aid 
to the English in the struggle with the French. Moreover, 
the treaty gave the English a title to the Iroquois country, 
a region which extended northward to Lake Ontario and 
westward and south westward' to the Mississippi and Ohio 
Rivers. It was high time that England should make a show 
of extending her boundaries, for France was claiming every- 
thing. " If the French," wrote Governor Dongan, " have all 
they pretend to have discovered in those parts, the King 
of England will not have a hundred miles from the sea any- 
where." 

The first clash in the inevitable conflict between the French 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 129 

and English colonists came in 1689, when James II was King 
compelled to abdicate his throne (p. y'j) and William III was lam's 
crowned in his stead. Louis XIV, who was friendly to the 
cause of the deposed English monarch, contributed money 
and gave the assistance of his fleet and his soldiers to bring 
about the restoration of the Stuart Kings. This interference 
of the French king in the affairs of England brought on a 
war which spread to America and which is known to us as 
King William's War. In this war, most of the fighting on 
the English side was done by the colonists of New York 
and New England. In point of numbers the advantage was 
all on the side of the English, for the population of New 
York and New England alone was about 100,000, while the 
population of all New France was scarcely 12,000. The fight- 
ing in the war was done almost wholly along the frontier, 
and consisted chiefly of raids upon the English settlements, 
and of retaliatory expeditions of the English against the 
French. In 1689 a body of Indians, incited by the French, 
fell upon the little village of Dover in New Hampshire, mas- 
sacring a large number of people. A little later, Pemaquid 
in Maine suffered in like manner. In 1690 in the dead of 
winter and in the night, Schenectady was attacked by a band 
of Frenchmen and Indians and a horrible massacre of 
the defenseless inhabitants followed. The only important 
naval event of the war was an expedition against Quebec, 
led by Sir William Phipps of Massachusetts. Phipps sailed 
against Quebec with a fleet of thirty vessels, but he found the 
town so strongly fortified that it could not be taken. So 
the expedition ended in failure. During the war Acadia 
was captured by the English but was recaptured by the French. 
Newfoundland fell (in 1696) into the hands of the French. 
The war was brought to an end in 1697 by the treaty of 
Ryswick. Under the terms of this treaty each country re- 
ceived the territory it possessed at the outbreak of the v^ar. 
So, Newfoundland was given back to England, and Acadia 
remained in the hands of the French. 

Nothing of real importance was settled by the treaty of 



130 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Queen 

Anne ' s 
War 

(The War 
of the 
Spanish 
Succes- 
sion) 



King 

George' 

War, 

17il- 

1748 



Louis- 
burg 



Ryswick, and within five years after the treaty, England and 
France were again at war. In 1702 the King of France placed 
liis grandson on the throne of S[)ain, and this extension of the 
French influence brought on war between England and France. 
The war, known in Europe as the War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion, spread to America where it was known as Queen 
Anne's War, Anne being at the time the Queen of Eng- 
land. This war was simply King William's War over again, 
except that in Queen Anne's War the frontier line of New 
York escaped the ravages of the French and Indians. The 
frontier communities of New England, however, suffered 
heavily from Indian scalping-parties. At Deerfield, Massachu- 
setts, there was a general slaughter of the inhabitants. In 
1706 the French fleet attacked Charleston, South Carolina, but 
it was unable to capture the town. In 17 10 an expedition from 
New England attacked Acadia (Nova Scotia) and gained 
possession of the peninsula. In 1713 the war was brought to 
a close by the treaty of Utrecht. Under the terms of this 
treaty Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay Territory were 
given to England. So, in Queen Anne's War France re- 
ceived a real Ijlow, for she lost a portion of her territory 
and a portion that she had every right to claim as her own. 
For thirty years after the treaty of Utrecht the French 
and English in America lived in peace. Then there was a 
third clash. From 1740 to 1748 nearly all the nations of 
Europe were at war with each other. In 1744 England took 
a hand in the struggle, arra)ing herself as usual against 
France. The European war now spread to America, where 
it was known as King George's War. In this war there was 
the usual border warfare between the French and the Eng- 
lish. There was also a military event of real importance. 
In 1745, Sir William Pepperell of Boston, with three thousand 
men from New England, captured the great fortress of Louis- 
burg, a stronghold which the French had built at great ex- 
pense and which they regarded as impregnable. King George's 
War was brought to an end ( 1748) by the treaty of Aix la 
Chapelle, by the terms of which all conquests made during 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 



131 



the war were mutually restored. This gave Louisburg back 
to the French. The taking of the great fortress, therefore, 
seemed hardly worth while. Nevertheless, its capture by 
colonial soldiers showed that the colonists had grown strong 
enough to carry out great undertakings if they desired to 
do so. 



43. THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

All the time the border wars were in progress, and during The 
the intervals of peace as well, the French were strengthening Forts 
their power in the Mississippi Valley. One of the first pre- 
cautions taken by the French was to secure firmly the terri- 
tory at the mouth of the Mississippi. In 1699 Iberville built 
a fort about fifty miles from the mouth of the river and 
established a colony, but the settlement languished and died. 
In 1716 Natchez was founded. This was the oldest per- 
manent settlement in the Mississippi Valley south of Illinois. 
In 1718 the streets of New Or- 
leans were laid out. In order to 
make the military occupation com- 
plete, important points throughout 
the valley were fortified. Forts 
were built on the Mississippi, the 
Illinois, and the Wabash, and on 
the shores of the Great Lakes. 
By the time the French had fin- 
ished with their plans their flag 
waved over a chain of sixty forts 
extending from Montreal to New 
Orleans. Thus the French power 
was spread over the entire Missis- 
sippi Valley. 




The French forts and Br&d- 
dock's campaig'n. 



But, as in the case of Canada (p. 125), the power was The 



Charac- 



spread very thin. The forts were only fur-trading stations, ter of 



French 



The forests of the great Valley were untouched and its soil coioniza, 
was untilled. And of course so long as there was no farm- 
ing there could not be a large population. Indeed, the French 



132 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

issae 



Frencn 
and 

Bnglisb 
Claims 



Bienville 
and the 
Leaden 
Plates 



came into Louisiana even more slowly than they came into 
Canada. In 1750 the inhabitants of the entire Mississippi 
Valley, exclusive of the Indian population, numbered only 
about 6,000 persons, 2,000 of whom were negro slaves. 

Still, by 1750, and even before that date, the French in 
the Valley were sufficiently numerous to excite the fears of 
the English. As early as 17 16, Governor Spottswood of Vir- 
ginia wrote the King of England: "Should they [the 
French] multiply their settlements along these lakes [the 
Great Lakes] so as to join the Dominion of Canada to 
their new colony of Louisiana, they might even possess them- 
selves of any of these plantations they pleased." Spottswood 
here, with prophetic eye, foresaw the real danger which the 
English would have to face if the French should secure a 
firm and lasting foothold in the country beyond the moun- 
tains : if the Mississippi Valley should fill uj) with Frenchmen, 
France would become the most powerful nation on earth, and 
a tide of French power and French civilization would sweep 
eastivard over the Alleghanies and subjugate the English col- 
onies along the coast, and at last drive England from off the 
face of the American continent. So the possession of the 
Mississippi Valley raised a question which involved the very 
existence of the contending nations. 

The life-and-death struggle began with a quarrel in re- 
gard to the possession of the Ohio Valley. France claimed 
this magnificent region on the ground of La Salle's discovery. 
England claimed it upon the ground of Cabot's discovery, and 
upon the further ground that the Iroquois Indians who were 
holding the Ohio country had by the treaty of 1684 acknowl- 
edged themselves to be English subjects and had ceded the 
Ohio land to the English Crown. Neither country, however, 
recognized the claims of the other as being just. 

In 1749 the King of England granted to the Ohio Com- 
pany, an organization consisting chiefly of Virginia gentle- 
men, two hundred thousand acres of land along the Ohio be- 
tween the Monongahela and the Kanawha rivers. This move- 
ment was regarded by the French as an encroachment and 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 133 

measures were at once taken to prevent the expansion of the 
English beyond the mountains, Celeron de Bienville with a 
small company of soldiers was sent, in 1749, from Montreal 
with instructions to take formal possession of the Ohio Val- 
ley and drive away all English intruders. As Celeron trav- 
ersed the valley, he took possession at various points by the 
ceremony of burying leaden plates bearing the inscription : 
" We have placed this plate here as a memorial of the estab- 
lishment of our power in the territory which is claimed by 
us on the Ohio River and throughout its tributaries to its 
source, and confirmed by the treaties of Ryswick, Utrecht, 
and Aix la Chapelle." Celeron encountered two bands of 
English traders, one band from South Carolina and the other 
from Virginia. The traders were given a warning to carry 
to their respective governors, informing them that if the Eng- 
lish persisted in intruding upon the upper Ohio, it would be- 
come necessary for the French to expel them by force. 

This warning was in effect a challenge and it was under- The 
stood and accepted as such. But the English disregarded com- 

>■ o o pauies 

the warning and went on with their plans for the oc- 
cupation of the Ohio Valley. In 1750 the Ohio Company 
sent Christopher Gist as its agent to explore the Ohio country 
and select lands for settlement. Gist visited the Indians on 
the Big Miami, with the result that Picktown, not far from 
the present Belief ontaine, was founded. In 1751 the Vir- 
ginia Assembly gave another land-company 800,000 acres west 
of the Alleghanies. Dr. Thomas Walker with some com- 
panions was sent out by the company to select and survey the 
land. Alaking his way through the Cumberland Gap, Walker 
built, near the spot where Barbourville now stands, the first 
houses erected by white men within the present State of Ken- 
tucky. 

The persistent activity of the land-companies so thoroughly The 
aroused the French that they at once began to prepare for rrencb 
a conflict. In 1752, in order to strengthen their position 
at the entrance of the Ohio region, they built a chain of three 
forts, one at Presque Isle (Erie), one twenty miles awav at 



134 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Dinwid- 
dle's 
Protest 



The 

Spirit of 
Disunion 



Leba'uf, and one at Venango (Franklin, Pennsylvania). Din- 
widdie, the governor of Virginia and a most energetic officer, 
sent George W'ashington, the young adjutant-general of the 
Virginia militia, to remonstrate with the French against oc- 
cupying territory which was " so notoriously known to be the 
property of the Crown of Great Britain." Washington was 
received with politeness but was given to understand that 
the French would not budge an inch from their position. 

Dinwiddie was determined to force the issue. In 1754 he 
undertook to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio — the 
junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela — and thus com- 
mand the gateway to the Ohio Valley. But Dinwiddie's men 
were driven from the forts by the French, who themselves 
built a fort on the spot, calling the place Fort Duquesne in 
honor of the governor of Canada. So in the first movement 
10 secure possession of the gateway to the Ohio country the 
French won their point ; New France was now in complete 
possession of the West. 

Realizing that the capture of the Forks of the Ohio con- 
cerned all the colonies, Dinwiddie commenced a campaign 
for a concerted intercolonial movement against the French, 
but the movement did not meet with a hearty response. In 
nearly every colony petty jealousies arose to prevent union and 
cooperation. In Pennsylvania it was thought that the dis- 
lodgment of the French would simply give the Ohio region 
to Virginia, and the Quaker colony was by no means eager 
to pull chestnuts out of the fire for its southern neighbor. 
In the Carolinas there was a slight disposition to assist in 
driving back the French. " Maryland, like the church of 
Laodicea, blew neither hot nor cold in the coming struggle. 
She made no show of zeal but she did not at any time 
actively hinder the operations of the war." New Jersey 
having no frontier to protect also held aloof. New York at 
first was disposed to withhold her aid altogether, but in the 
end rendered substantial assistance. Only in Virginia and 
New England were the people eager to help in driving the 
French from the stronghold which they had gained. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 



135 



The spirit of disunion which pervaded the colonies showed J^^ 
itself in the reception given to a scheme of union which was uiuon^ 
drawn up in 1754 by Benjamin Franklin ^ and adopted at 
Albany by delegates from seven colonies. This scheme pro- 
vided for a central council in which each colony should be 
represented according to its population, — a foreshadowing of 
the present national House of Representatives. The central 
government of Franklin's plan was 
given powers that would have en- 
abled the colonies to throw their 
united strength against the French. 
If such a union cotdd have been 
effected, the outcome of the strug- 
gle could not have been in doubt 
for a single moment, for the Eng- 
lish colonists outnumbered the 
Frenchmen thirteen to one. '* The 
disparity of wealth was equally 
striking. In 1754 there was more 
real civilization — more seeds of Benjamin Franklin, 

things — in the town of Boston than in all New France." But 
superiority in wealth and population could not outweigh the 
spirit of dissension which prevailed in the colonies. Frank- 
lin's plan of union was not well received either at home or in 
England. When it was submitted to the several colonial as- 
semblies it was in every instance rejected. 

44. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (1755-1763.) 
While the colonists were hesitating and wavering, England Prepara- 

° fe' to tions for 

was taking decisive action. In the French and Indian war - war 

1 Born at Boston, 1706; died at Philadelphia, 1790. Learned the printer's 
trade and in 1729 established himself at Philadelphia as editor of The Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette. Began to publish Poor Richard's Almanac in 1732; became post- 
master of Philadelphia in 1737; founded the University of Pennsylvania in 1743; 
in 1752 demonstrated by experiments made with a kite during a thunderstorm 
that lightning is a discharge of electricity; was deputy postmaster-general for the 
British colonies in America, 1752-1774. 

2 It was called the French and Indian War because the Indians — with the im- 
portant exception of the Iroquois, who were on the side of the English — were 
generally found on the side of the French. 




136 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

— as the coming struggle was called — it was England and 
not the colonies that offered determined and successful re- 
sistance to France. The commanders on the English side 
were officers who came over from the mother country, and 
a majority of the soldiers were British regulars; the ex- 
•penses of the war were for the most part paid out of the 
English treasury ; the large movements of the war were 
planned by English minds. 
Plan of ^^^ ^755 General Braddock, with two regiments of British 

paien regulars, was sent by the English government to \'irginia 

for the purpose of attacking the French at Fort Duquesne. 
At Alexandria Braddock held a conference with several 
colonial governors and a plan of campaign was agreed upcn. 
Four expeditions were to be sent against the French. One 
was to proceed from Fort Cumberland in Maryland against 
Fort Duquesne. Another was to proceed by water from New 
England against Acadia and Louisburg; a third was to move 
from Albany against the French fort at Niagara ; and a fourth 
was to march against Forts Ticondcroga and Crown Point 
and thence against Quebec. If successful, the first expe- 
dition would give the English entrance into the Ohio Valley ; 
the second would give them mastery of the sea-coast ; the third 
would give them control of the water routes between Canada 
and the Mississippi Valley; while the fourth would lead to 
the complete conquest of Canada. This plan, mapped out at 
the opening of the conquest, was followed quite faithfully 
till the struggle was ended. 
Brad- The expedition against Fort Duquesne was led by General 

ClOCiC s 

Defeat Braddock, who had George Washington as a member of his 
staff. On July 3, 1755, Braddock, at a point about eight 
miles from Fort Duquesne was ambuscaded by a body of 
French and Indians, and his army met with a disaster " such 
as no pen can describe." Nearly 800 of his men were killed. 
He himself was wounded so severely that he died in a few 
days. When Braddock fell, Washington took charge of 
the troops and led them out of the trap into which they had 
marched, but he did not proceed further against the French. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 



137 



So the first expedition ended in awful failure and left the 
French stronger than ever in their position at the Forks of 
the Ohio. 

The second expedition, that against Acadia, was more sue- Acadia 
cessful. In June 1755, the English sailed into the Bay of 
Fundy and took possession of the country round about, a 
region which was usually known as Acadia. As the Acadians 




Scene of the French and Indian War. 



were wholly disloyal to the rule of the English, it was thought 
good policy to rid the land of them. So seven thousand of 
these simple folk — men, women, and children — were seized 
and carried to the colonies, being scattered along the coast 
from Massachusetts to Georgia. 

After the conquest of Acadia, little of importance was The 

... Policy 

done until 1758 when William Pitt became the leading spirit of Pitt 



xt5J$ ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

in the English cabinet and the virtual ruler of the country. 
This great man not only gave new life to the contest but ne 
completely changed the policy of England in regard to Amer- 
ican affairs. Up to this time the policy had been simply to 
prevent the French from encroaching upon iMiglish territory ; 
her new policy, as moulded by Pitt, was to drive the French 
from the American continent, 
cicfse ^" carrying out his bold design, Pitt did not depart widely 

of the from the military plan which had already been marked out. 
He completed the expedition along the sea-coast, and in a few 
mouths the great fortress of Louisburg (in 1758) was in the 




Quebec (About 1750). 

hands of the English, and the gateway of the St. Lawrence was 
closed to the French. The expedition against Fort Duquesne 
was renewed and on Christmas Day, 1758, that stronghold also 
fell into the hands of the English, who changed the name 
of it to Fort Pitt. The next year, in July, Sir William John- 
son moved against the fort at Niagara and captured it, thus 
cutting off the French in Canada from the Ohio Valley. The 
purpose of three of the expeditions had now l)een accomplished. 
The fourth expedition was begun by General Amherst, who 
captured Crown Point, and was finished by General Wolfe 
who met Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham and precipitated 
the unconditional surrender of Quebec to the English (Sep- 




BEFORE THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 




AFTER THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 130 

tember 1759). About a year after the fall of Quebec, 
Montreal was captured, and the war ended. Canada was 
now completely under English control. 

In the diplomatic negotiations which followed upon the con- The 

. Treaty 

elusion of the war, it scenied at one time that England would of 

Paris 
give Canada back to France, just as she had given Louisburg 

back in 1748. But Benjamin Franklin strongly opposed the 
surrender of Canada, and in the end it was retained by Eng- 
land. After France had agreed to the loss of Canada, it 
seemed hardly worth while to hold the adjacent territory 
at the south. So by the treaty of Paris which was concluded 
in February 1763, it was agreed that all French possessions 
east of the Mississippi except the city of New Orleans and 
the island on which it stood, should be given to England. 
Thus the French and Indian War gave England not only 
Canada but also the eastern portion of the Mississippi Valley. 
In 1759 England, waging war with Spain as well as v.'ith 
France, had taken possession of the Island of Cuba. At 
the treaty of Paris she agreed to give Cuba back to Spain and 
in return to receive Florida and all the remaining territory that 
Spain possessed in North America east of the Mississippi River. 
On the same day that the treaty was signed the French King 
secretly ceded to Spain the city of New Orleans, and under the 
name of Louisiana gave to Spain the vast region spreading 
westward from the Mississippi toward the Pacific. Thus 
France lost every foot of land she had in North America ex- 
cepting only two little islands — Miquelon and St. Pierre — in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, upon which she retained fishing 
rights. 

The Euroi^ean background of the French and Indian War The 

, o - . -1 • • • Seven 

was the Seven Years' War which, beginning in 1756 and ending '^^^^' 
in 1763, was waged against Frederick the Great of Prussia by 
an alliance whose chief members were Austria, France, and 
Russia. Great Britain threw her aid to Frederick for the 
reason that France Avas not only hostile to English interests in 
America but was trying to drive the English out of India. 
The war resulted in a victory for Prussia. For England the 



I40 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Seven Years' War, of which the French and Indian War was 
but a phase, had a tremendous significance. " The Seven 
Years' War," says Parkman, " made England what she is. It 
ruined France in two continents and blighted her as a world 
power. It gave to England the control of the seas and the 
mastery of North America and India, made her the first of 
commercial nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that 
has planted New England in every (juarter of the globe." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The discovery of the Mississippi: Thwaites, 49-71; Halsey II, 
196-202 ; Parkman, 186-195. 

2. Give an account of the discovery of the Mississippi following Mar- 
quette's own account: Halsey I, 186-192; also Hart I, 136-140. 

3. The rivalry of England and France: Thwaites, 89-104; Ogg, 214- 
293. 

4. England and France in America (1684-1740) : Channing II, 527- 
563 ; Robinson and Beard I, 101-120. 

5. Give an account of Washington's expedition to the Ohio and the 
battle of Great Meadows: Halsey HI, 25-38; Thwaites, 157-172. 

6. Give the outline of Franklin's Plan of Union: Halsey HI, 15-24; 
Thwaites, 170-172. 

7. Give an account of Pitt's policy toward America : Green, 755-756. 

8. Characterize William Pitt : Green, 748-753. 

9. The deportation of the Acadians : Hart II, 360-365 ; Halsey HI, 
55-57; Thwaites, 184-187. 

ID. The Seven Years' War: Robinson and Beard I, 68-71. 

11. Dates for the chronological table: 1673, 1682, 1684, i68g, 1697, 
17 13, 1748, 1754, 1759, 1763. 

12. Summarize the chief events which led to the expulsion of the 
French from America. 

13. Of the five treaties mentioned in this chapter which was 
of most importance to Americans? Which was second in importance? 

14. Special Reading. Francis Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada; 
Jesuits in North America; A Half Century of Conflict; Montcalm 
and Wolfe. Justin Winsor, The Mississippi Basin. A. B. Bradley, 
Fight linth France for North America. Bancroft II, 137-313; 377- 
388. 



XIV 
OVER THE MOUNTAINS 

What did England do with the territory which she acquired by the 
Treaty of 1763? Especially, what did she do with her new possessions 
west of the Alleghanies? How did she deal with the Indian tribes of 
this region? How was the country beyond the mountains opened up 
to settlement? What was the early history of the first western set- 
tlements, and what was the character of the settlers? 

45. CLEARING THE WAY FOR THE WHITE MAN. 

The expulsion of the French from America was felt by the The 
Indians to be a severe blow to their fortunes. As long as of the 
both the French and the English were present as rivals, the after 
Indian held a position of importance in American affairs. Fie 
could throw his strength now to this nation and now to that 
and hold both in check. While both nations were on the 
ground and the Indians held the balance of power, it was the 
policy of the French and the English alike to treat the red 
man well, to make favorable bargains with him, to load him 
with presents, to give him plenty of brandy and rum, for in this 
way his good-will and assistance were secured. But with the 
French absent from the scene, the Indians at once lost much 
of their importance. As the English had now no need of them 
as allies, their good-will was a matter of little concern. The 
red tribes in the Ohio Valley saw plainly enough that the expul- 
sion of the French meant their own expulsion ; that the English 
would conquer the Indians as they had conquered the French, 
and would drive them from their hunting-grounds or make 
them slaves. Even before the close of the French and Indian 
War they saw their best hunting-grounds invaded and on the 
eastern ridges of the Alleghanies they could see " the smoke 
from the settled clearings rise in tall columns from the dark 

141 



142 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
King's 
Proclama- 
tion 



Pontiac's 
Con- 
spiracy 



green bosom of the forest." The threatened invasion of their 
country thoroughly ahirnied the savages, and when the Ohio 
Valley passed under English control the redskins in this region 
were already threatening to rebel against their new masters. 

The English government, wishing to avoid trouble with the 
Indians, took measures to conciliate them. In 1763 George 
III issued a proclamation reserving for the use of the Indians 
all the territory west of the heads or sources of the rivers 
flowing into the Atlantic. This shut the white man out from 
all the land which lay between the Alleghanies and the Missis- 
sippi. " We do hereby strictly forbid," said the King in his 
proclamation, " all our loving subjects from making any pur- 
chase or settlements whatever, or taking possession of the lands 
above reserved, without our special leave or license for that 
purpose first obtained." All persons who had already settled 
on any of the land west of the forbidden limit were forthwith 
to remove themselves. The proclamation created widespread 
dissatisfaction in the colonies, for it was a virtual surrender 
to the Indians of the best and largest part of the territory 
which had just been received from the Erench. If the King's 
plan had been carried out, English civilization would have 
been confined to the seaboard, and the richest and fairest por- 
tion of America would have been permanently reserved as a 
hunting-ground for savages and as a lair for wild beasts. 

The proclamation was issued in order to pacify the Indians, 
l)ut it came too late for its purpose. For before its terms 
were made known to the redmen they had been led into a 
conspiracy by Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas, to drive the 
English out of the Ohio Valley. The blow of the conspirators 
fell in the spring of 1763, when a reign of terror began along 
the western borders. In a few months hundreds of pioneer 
families were murdered, outlying plantations were burned, and 
the colonies themselves were threatened with invasion. Cy the 
end of 1763, only Eorts Pitt and Detroit were left as senti- 
nels of English authority west of the Alleghanies. In 1764, 
however, General Henry Bouquet led a force into the heart 
of the Indian country and brought the savages into subjection. 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS 143 

Pontiac himself kept up a show of resistance until 1766 when 
he formally submitted to British rule. 

After Bouquet had brought the Indians to terms, he made The^^ ^ 
with them a preliminary treaty which provided that the tribes |ort 
living south of the Ohio should withdraw to the region north 1768 
of it. This arrangement was confirmed by the treaty made 
in 1768 at Fort Stanwix (now Rome, New York). By this 
.famous treaty it was further agreed that for the sum of $6,000 
in money and goods, the title to a large part of western Vir- 
ginia and to what is now the State of Kentucky west as far 
as the Tennessee River, should be transferred to the British 
crown. At Fort Stanwix, also, Pennsylvania secured from the 
Indians a title to what is now the western portion of the State. 
Thus a vast territory across the mountains was cleared of 
Indians and thrown open to the whites for settlement. 

46. EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. 

The suppression of Pontiac and the consequent pushing back 
of the Indians gave new life to schemes of western settle- 
ment. White men on the borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
and the Carolinas now turned their faces eagerly toward the 
west. Among the first to seek homes across the mountains 
were the Scotch-Irish, who were ever pressing onward and 
westward in search of fertile lands. Some of these early 
pioneers had settled in western Pennsylvania even before the 
way had been made clear by the treaty of Fort Stanwix. In 
1765 the town of Pittsburgh was laid out and five years later puts- 
it was a village of twenty houses. Between 1766 and 1770 ^^'^^^ 
many settlers established homes in the Monongahela Valley. 
By 1770, in the country lying between the Ohio and the Mo- 
nongahela Rivers there were about fifteen hundred whites, 
most of them Scotch-Irish. In 1769, Ebenezer Zane, a " God- 
fearing, Bible-loving, Scotch Presbyterian,'' made the first 
clearing at the mouth of Wheeling Creek and laid the founda- wheeling 
tions of the city of Wheeling. These settlements were all 
made on the south bank of the Ohio. The north side of the 



Dun- 
more 's 



144 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Ohio was strictly " Indian country," and no permanent set- 
tlements were made on that side of the river before the 
Revolution. 

The settlement of the south bank of the ( )hio was strongly 
War resented by the Indians, and it was not long before the whites 

and the redmen were engaged in a conflict which is known 
as Dunmore's War, Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, 
having taken a leading part in the struggle. The decisive 
battle in this war was fought (October 1774) at Point Pleas- 
ant near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. The 
Indians were commanded by Cornstalk, the chief of the 
Shawnees ; the settlers, by Colonel Andrew Lewis of Virginia. 
The contestants were about equal in numbers and the battle 
was one of the most stubborn ever waged between white 
men and redmen. The Indians were badly defeated and 
driven back into their country north of the Ohio. Soon after 
the battle Lord Dunmore made a treaty whereby the Indians 
agreed not to hunt south of the Ohio and not to molest voy- 
agers on that river. 

47. KENTUCKY. 

The results of Dunmore's War made the settlement of the 
Boone's countrv south of the Ohio an easy matter as far as the In- 

Expedi- . ^ .... 

tion dians were concerned, and a steady stream of emigration began 

to flow into the region now included within the borders of 
Kentucky and Tennessee. But the opening up of the region 
had begun several years before the battle at Point Pleasant. 
In 1769, Daniel Boone, a Scotch-Irishman and one of the 
most remarkable of American pioneers, setting out from North 
Carolina with a few companions and " threading his way 
through tangled mountain and gloomy forest," passed through 
the gorges of the Cumberland Gap — as Walker before him 
(p. 133) had passed — and reached the blue-grass region of 
Kentucky; a land of running waters, groves, glades, and prai- 
ries, over which roamed herds of countless bufifalo, deer, and 
round-horned elk. 

Boone's expedition prepared the way for the rapid settle- 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS 



145 




Daniel Boone in the cos- 
tume of a western 
hunter. 



ment of Kentucky. In 1775 Colonel Richard Henderson Transyi- 
bought from the Cherokee Indians for the sum of £10,000, 
their claims to all the country be- —.-—-- 

tween the Kentucky and the Cum- 
berland. Here Henderson began 
the founding of a colony which was 
called Transylvania. Boone was 
employed to take thirty men and 
open up a road between Transylva- 
nia and the older settlements. After 
great labor, Boone's Wilderness 
Road was finished and the settle- 
ment of Transylvania was begun. 
But the first settlement in Transyl- 
vania was made before Boone's 
road was completed. In 1774 
James Harrod of Virginia with fifty 
men floated down the Ohio River in flat-boats and, ascending 
the Kentucky River, founded the town of Harrodsburg. 
The next year, Boone with about thirty settlers founded the 
town of Boonesboro. In 1775 Lexington also was founded, 
and two years later the foundations of Louisville were laid. 
Transylvania was now so far on the road to prosperity that 
a government for the colony was established. But the col- 
ony was located on land which belonged to Virginia. In 
1778 the latter asserted her claims and blotted out the 
existence of the Transylvania government. The new set- The 
tlements in the West were then organized as a regular 0/^ "'^ 
\'irginia county, bearing the name of Kentucky, with Har- 
rodstown as the county-seat. Kentucky county flourished and 
was soon divided into three counties (Fayette, Jefferson, and 
Lincoln). The name Kentucky was then used to describe 
the entire region, which was known as the " district of Ken- 
tucky." The settlement of this district went on so rapidly 
that before the close of the colonial period there were prob- 
ably 20,000 inhabitants within its borders. 



146 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 




Kentucky, Tennessee, and early Ohio. 

48. TENNESSEE. 

Watauga While Booiie aiul his followers were laying the foundations 
of Kentucky, other pioneers from Virginia and North Caro- 
lina were laying the foundations of Tennessee. The actual 
settlement of Tennessee began in 1769, when William Bean 
of Virginia built himself a log cabin on the Watauga River. 
Pioneers from North Carolina followed Bean, and within 
a few years several hundred people had built homes on the 
banks of the Watauga. " Most of these pioneer^, like most 
of the pioneers of Kentucky, were backwoodsmen of sturdy 
Scotch-Irish stock, venturesome and turbulent, determined and 
religious, good hunters and good fighters." Since the Wa- 
tauga settlement was located in the Tennessee region on land 
which belonged to North Carolina, the people of the settle- 
ment looked to the parent community to provide them with 
a government, but North Carolina neglected the little settle- 
ment in the woods. So th^ settlers under the leadership of 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS 



147 



James Robertson did what was done so often by communities 
of American pioneers: they drew up (1772) a plan of 
government — a written constitution — and proceeded to gov- 
ern themselves. The " Articles of the Watauga Association," 
as the rude constitution of these backwoodsmen was called, 
was the first written constitution adopted west of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. It provided for an elective law-making 
body and for a committee of five men who were to exercise 
executive and judicial functions. Two members of the com- 
mittee were James Robertson and John Sevier, the leading 
spirits of the settlement and the real founders of Tennessee. 
The constitution continued in force for six years, when the 
Watauga settlements were brought (in 1778) under the pro- 
tection of North Carolina and organized as a county. The 
settlement of Tennessee now went steadily on so that by 1780 
John Sevier and Isaac Shelby could muster several hundred 



^^^±^^J^^1^E^J^^ 




^f^^W^^ii^'^3^-':^-^ 



James Robertson. 



John Sevier. 



Tennessee riflemen for service in the cause of American in- 
dependence. 

Thus within a few years after the signing of the treaty of 
Paris, the Westward Movement had carried settlers far beyond 
the base of the Alleghanies and the foundations of two great 
western States had been firmly laid. 



148 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Fro.itier 
Fotts 



j-iangers 

of 

Pioneer 
Life 



Simplicity 
of 

Pioneer 
liife 



foundations of the great 



49. LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS 

The frontier folk who laid the 
West were confronted by the hard conditions of life in a 
wilderness. The great forests had to be subdued by the ax 
and held by the rifle ; for, in spite of treaties, a red foe was 
always lurking near with mischief in his heart. One of the 
first things done by a group of settlers was to build a fort 
consisting of cabins and strongly fortified blockhouses. The 
cabins were often arranged in the form of a hollow square, 
at each corner of which was a blockhouse. Both cabins and 
blockhouses were provided with little portholes for rifles. 
The fort usually was simply a " City of Refuge." Each set- 
tler had his own cabin on his farm and the cabins at the fort 
were only used in time of danger. These frontier forts were 

a leading feature of pio- 
neer life, and they played 
a most important part in 
the development of the 

n\r^i<lte*y.: iiiiiiiiilBli '^^'^-^^- 

But the pioneer 
compelled to battle 
many things besides 
ans. " His homely woods- 
man's dress," says Doddridge, " soon became old and ragged. 
Often he had to eat his venison, bear meat, or wild turkey 
without bread or salt. His situation was not without its dan- 
gers. He did not know at what tread his foot might be stung 
by a serpent, or he knew not on what limb of a tree over his 
head the murderous panther might be perched to drop down 
upon and tear him to pieces. Exiled from society and the 
comforts of life, the situation of the pioneer was dangerous in 
the extreme. A broken limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of 
sickness in the wilderness without those accommodations 
wiiich wounds and sickness require, was a dreadful calamity." 
The settler's cabin, made of unhewn logs, was usually a 
one-story affair, though sometimes in the larger cabins a 




was 
with 
Indi- 



A Blockhouse. 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS 149 

ladder led to a loft above. The furniture was such as could 
be made upon the spot by unskilled workmen. A great clap- 
board set on four wooden legs served as a table, and Ihree- 
legged stools served as chairs. The rude couch or bed was 
covered with blankets or the hides of animals. On the table 
were a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons, but most of the 
tableware consisted of wooden dishes. 

" Thus the backwoodsman lived in the clearings he had ^he^ 
hewed out of the everlasting forest ; a grim, stern people, °^^^ 
strong and simple, . . . the love of freedom rooted in their woods- 
very hearts' core. Their lives were harsh and narrow ; they ^|j[t?^®' 
gained their bread by their blood and sweat in the unending 
struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They suffered 
terrible injuries at the hands of the redmen and on their 
foes they waged a terrible warfare in return. They were 
relentless, revengeful, suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor 
pity; they were upright, resolute and fearless, loyal to their 
friends and devoted to their country. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The vanguard of the Westward Movement: McElroy, 1-32. 

2. How the Frontier was settled : Hart II, 387-393. 

3. The beginnings of the West : Howard, 222-241 ; Van Tyne, 
269-288. 

4. Transylvania: McElroy, 33-61. 

5. The North Carolina regulators : Hart II, 426-428. 

6. The life of an Indian trader: Hart II, 327-330. 

7. English and Spanish neighbors after 1763 : Ogg, 294-399. 

8. The Importance of the Mississippi Valley : Ogg, 1-7. 

9. Dates for the chronological table: 1760, 1769, 1772, 1778. 

10. Show that the isolation of the backwoodsman was much more 
•complete than that of the settlers along the seaboard. In what ways 
did this isolation afifect the character of the backwoodsmen? 

11. Special Reading. Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement. 
Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West. 



XV 

LIFE IN THE COLONIES DURING THE CLOSING YEARS 
OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD (1763-1783) 

The treaty signed at Paris in 1763 marked the beginning of what 
may be called the closing period (1763-1776) of colonial history. What 
conditions prevailed in the colonies during this period? What stages of 
social and industrial development had been reached in the colonies while 
they were yet under British control? What kind of a civilization did 
the British colonies transmit directly to the American nation? 

50. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS 
(I 763-1 783). 

A traveler in the colonies in 1763 said that " the most 
populous and flourishing- parts of Old England made hardly a 
better appearance nor enjoyed a higher degree of civilization 
than did the New England colonies." The same thing might 
have been said with much truth of the Middle and of the 
Southern Colonies also; for at the end of the colonial period 
no colony was any longer a crude community, and every col- 
ony was well started on the path of progress. 
Colonial Agriculture was still the chief occupation in every colony, 

although in New England the products of the soil were hardly 
sufficient to support the inhabitants. In the South the tillage 
of large plantations and the almost exclusive employment of 
black labor had developed into a regular system. Only in 
North Carolina and in districts far back from the coast did the 
small farmer thrive. In- the Northern Colonies, on the other 
hand, the system of small holdings in land prevailed. Here 
an able-bodied man with limited means could easily secure pos- 
session of a small tract of land and become an independent 
farmer. 



Farming 



LIFE IN THE COLONIES 151 

In New England tlie people still turned their faces toward Fisheries 
the sea. After the Treaty of Paris they could extend their 
fisheries as far north as Labrador, and by 1775 they had sixty 
ships engaged in the whale fishery. The mackerel and the 
cod fisheries were even more important. In 1763 Massachu- 
setts alone had four hundred vessels engaged in taking mack- 
erel and cod. Ship-building also continued to flourish in New ship- 
England. In ^767 a schooner of eighty-eight tons was built 
near Wells in Maine. On the Piscataqua four vessels were 
built every week, while the total number built in New Eng- 
land in 1769 was nearly four hundred. 

Manufacturing was not in a flourishing condition. The Manu- ^ 
repressive measures (p. 107) of the British government had 
done their work so effectively that by 1763 the manufactures 
of New England were of less importance than they were in 
1700. In the Middle Colonies, they were at a still lower ebb. 
A traveler passing through New York and New Jersey found 
that the manufactures in these two colonies were not worth 
mentioning. In Pennsylvania, however, the traveler could 
say that the Scotch-Irish made very good linen and that the 
thread stockings of Germantown were highly esteemed. In 
the Southern Colonies there was even less manufacturing Southern 
than in the Middle Group. On the great estates in the South, 
however, there was a rude kind of industry carried on by 
slaves. A well-equipped Virginia plantation, like that, for 
example, of Washington at Mount Vernon, had a mill for 
the making of flour ; a forge for making nails and other ar- 
ticles of iron ; a bakery ; a carpenter-shop ; and a weaving-room 
where the coarse clothing for the slaves was made. Such a 
plantation was in many respects a self-supporting community 
like an English manor in the middle ages. For the finer ar- 
ticles of manufacture the Southern planter of course depended 
upon England. 

There was, however, one industry in the colonies which was iron 
m a prosperous condition. This was iron-making. All along facture 
the coast there was a deposit known as bog ore, from which 
good iron could be smelted, and from the beginning the colo- 



152 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

nists made good use of this ore. Before the close of the sev- 
enteenth century there were several iron-works in operation 
in New England, and by the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury iron-making was common in nearly all the colonies. Eng- 
land favored the manufacture of iron in the colonies 
because the supply of charcoal at home was nearly exhausted 
and the English factories required all the iron the colonists 
could make. But the colonists did not stop with the 
mere smelting of the ore. The pig iron which they made 
was used to make andirons, chains, hinges, and especially 
nails. This manufacturing of articles made of iron was 
viewed by the English in quite a different light (p. io8), 
and was accordingly checked to some extent by Parliament, 
which passed an act prohibiting the manufacturing of iron 
in the colonies beyond the stage of pig iron or bar iron. 

Next to agriculture, the stay and support of the colonies 
was commerce, which had grown to considerable proportions. 
The trade between the colonies and Great Britain in 1770 
is shown, in round numbers, in the following table : 

Exports to Imports from 
Great Britain. Great Britain. 

New England $ 650,000 $1,750,000 

New York 300,000 2,100,000 

Pennsylvania 125,000 600,000 

Virginia and Maryland 2,000,000 3,200,000 

Carolinas 1,250,000 650,000 

Georgia 250,000 250,000 

Total $4,575,000 $8,550,000 

It will be observed that the Southern Colonies furnished 
nearly three-fourths of the exports to the Mother-Country. 
These exports consisted chiefly of tobacco, rice, indigo, pitch, 
tar, and turpentine. The table shows also that the Southern 
Colonies were good customers of England. As between the 
colonies and Great Britain the balance of trade was nearly two 
to one in favor of Great Britain. But the balance was in a 
measure restored by the profits of the trade carried on with 



LIFE IN THE COLONIES 



153 



other countries, especially with the West Indies, for the mo- 
lasses — rum — slave-trade (p. 109) which was profitable in 
1700 was still more profitable in 1770. 

Upon the whole, the preponderance of trade was against the Money 
colonies, a condition which caused money to flow away from 
them. As a result there was a scarcity of gold and silver 
coin. To supply the desired currency, the colonies, as we 



Eighieen PE NCE g^ -Vj. '/±^0_y^'^ I 

for Asr Penny- -wri^t, [fl^ uid Nine Giaina it'FL'sTE. 
' December ^i , 1763. § Eighteen Fence. J 




Specimen of Colonial money. 



have seen (p. 109), often resorted to issues of paper money. 
But this money always depreciated in value. For example, 
in 1760, the paper money of New Jersey passed at less than 
one-third of its face value. In 1751 Parliament forbade the 
issue of paper money by the New England colonies, and in 
1764 it extended the prohibition to all the colonies, much to 
the dissatisfaction of the people. 

The scarcity of money was unfavorable enough for trade. Transport 
but the difficulties of travel and the high cost of transporta- 
tion were even more unfavorable. The roads in the colonies 
were little better in 1770 than they were in 1700, and to haul 
goods of the cheaper kind for a long distance often cost more 
than the goods were worth. Coaches and carriages were pos- 
sessed only by the very wealthy. For example, in the city 
of Philadelphia in 1761 only thirty-one citizens had private 
carriages. A favorite vehicle was the two-wheeled chaise, 
the " wonderful one boss shay " described by Holmes, Trav- 



IS4 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

eling, however, was still clone mostly on horseback. " A 
farmer went to church astride a horse with his wife sitting 
behind on a cushion called a pillion ; while the young people 
walked, stopping to change their shoes before reaching the 
meeting-house." In 1756 a stage-route was established be- 
tween New York and Philadelphia, and four years later stages 
were running regularly between the two cities, making the trip 
Colonial in three days. With the development of the stage-routes there 
System was a Corresponding improvement in the postal system. By 
1775 ^ general postal system with Benjamin Franklin at its 
head had been established, and a letter could be sent from 
Falmouth, Maine, to Savannah, in Georgia. In some of the 
largest cities there were now as many as three mails a week, 
although a town was still lucky if it got one mail a week, 

51. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE. 

uon"'^" ^^^^ population of the colonies in 1775 had nearly reached 

the three million mark, and was increasing at a marvelous 
rate. " Such is the strength," said Burke, " with which pop- 
ulation shoots up in that part of the world, that, state the 
numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues the 
exaggeration ends. While we spend our time in deliberations 
on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we 
have millions more to manage." About one-fifth of the popu- 
lation consisted of negro slaves. Another fifth, perhaps, con- 
sisted of non-English people : Dutch, Germans, Irish, French. 
All the rest were either English or descendants of English. 
In New England the population was almost purely English, 
as it was also in the Southern Colonies, leaving the negroes 
out of the count. In the Middle Colonies the foreign ele- 
ment was large. Especially was this true of New York, which 
continued to be the cosmopolitan place it always was (p. 92). 

Towns Life in the colonies was essentially rural. " Some few 

towns excepted," wrote a colonist, " we are all tillers of the 
soil, from Nova Scotia to West Florida." Philadelphia, Bos- 
ton, New York, Charleston, and probably Norfolk were the 
only places that contained more than 5,000 inhabitants. Bal- 



LIFE IN THE COLONIES 155 

timore in 1764 bad only about two bundred bomes. Pbila- 
delpbia, vvitb its population (in 1763) of about 25,000, was 
tbe metropolis of tbe colonies, and was a bealtbful and at- 
tractive city. Its streets were well paved and its markets 




An old-time view of Baltimore. 

were excellent. In almost every line of progress, too, the 
Quaker city took the lead. " Tbe first fire companies were 
started there, tbe first circulating library, tbe first company 
for insurance against fire, and tbe first bank." 

Colonial society presented widely difi^erent aspects to a social 
traveler passing from one group of colonies to another. In 
New England the people for tbe most part lived in small 
towns and were engaged in trade and in the simple occu- 
pations of fishing and ship-building. In the large towns, as 
in Boston, Salem, Portsmouth and Newport, there were a 
few v^ealthy citizens, but as a rule there were no great dis- in New 
tinctions in wealth or social rank. Everybody was well-to- 
do, beggars and paupers being almost unknown. Industry and 
thrift were tbe watchwords of New England life. The spirit 
of Puritanism was still strong. Luxury was avoided and 
fashion was not courted. The people had little time and 
little desire for pleasure and amusements. The theater was 
not allowed, and life was too serious for such frivolous things 
as dancing and card-playing. 

In the Middle Colonies tbe distinctions in wealth and social in the 

, -- . . . , , Middle 

rank were sumcient to create an aristocratic class, the most colonies. 



156 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

fashionable and luxurious center being Thiladelphia. Here the 
aristocratic class consisted simply of those who had ac- 
quired wealth, birth or position having little to do with 
the assignment of the rank. And the rich Quaker was not 
averse to luxury. " Nowhere," says S. G. Fisher, writing of 
the Philadelphians, " were the women so resplendent in silks, 
satins, velvets, and brocades, and they piled their hair moun- 
tains high. It often required hours for the pu]:)lic dresser to 
arrange one of these head-dresses. When he was in great 
demand, just before a ball, the ladies whom he first served were 
obliged to sit up all the previous night and move carefully all 
day, lest the towering mass should be disturbed." Nor were 
the Quakers averse to amusements, and pleasure. Balls and 
routs and dances were common, theaters were opened, and 
banquets of the most elaborate character were served. John 
Adams, who was accustomed to the plain living and the steady 
habits of New England, " stood aghast at the gay life which 
he saw (in 1774) in Philadelphia, and thought it must be sin." 
in the In the Southern Colonies the structure of society was that 

Colonies of a landed aristocracy. Here class distinctions were clearly 
marked. At the bottom of the social scale were the negro 
slaves ; above these were the poor whites, who worked for a 
living; at the top of the scale w^ere the landed gentry, the 
owners of the great plantations. Since the slaves did most 
of the work, the planters had abundant leisure. This was 
spent principally in fox-hunting, horse-racing, and other out- 
door sports. A large part of the landlord's time was spent 
on horseback, visiting his neighbors or riding over his planta- 
tion. The Virginians were especially fond of sports, and at 
the fairs which were held at the county-seats it seemed that 
]\Ierry England had been transported across the Atlantic, At 
a fair held in Norfolk " a gilt-laced hat was placed on top a 
pole w^ell greased and soaped, and as man after man climbed 
it only to slip down with a rush before he reached the prize, 
the crowd screamed with delight, until some enduring one suc- 
ceeded. Pigs were turned loose and the whole crowd chased 
them to catch them by their greased tails. Some were sewn 



LIFE IN THE COLONIES 



157 



Up in sacks and ran races, tumbling and rolling over each 
other." 

In matters of education the colonies at the end of the colo- Education 
nial period were all making some progress. New England 
took the lead, as it had always done. Besides the system of 
common schools at w'hich the rudiments were learned, there 
were scattered throughout New England academies — such 
as Phillips-Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and the Phil- 
lips-Andover Academy in Massachusetts — where youth re- 
ceived instruction 
in the higher 
branches, chiefly 
in Latin, Greek, 
and Mathematics. 
Excellent academ- 
ies were found 
also in the Middle 
and Southern Col- 
onies. Common 
schools, however, 
were rare outside 
New England. In 
the South where 

the people lived far apart on the plantations it was very diffi- 
cult to maintain schools. Accordingly the Southern planter 
was compelled to employ a tutor or governess for his chil- 
dren. Sometimes several planters would join and employ a 
tutor. Higher education was gaining a foothold in nearly 
all the colonies. Before the end of the colonial period many 
of our great institutions of learning — Harvard, William and 
Mary, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Co- 
lumbia, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth, — had been founded 
and were giving instruction in advanced subjects. 

That indispensable handmaid of education, the printing- Books 
press was found in every colony. Books, however, were not 
yet printed in great numbers. The hard conditions of colonial 
life were not favorable to authorship, and American authors 





1^1 






\::^,0j' 




HHe^^- 


"d^^ 


" '^*'j;,| 


, 1 ) j 




; .- i .: ■.4*:- 


V;4-^r:: j 


^i^ 


L/ 


^^^^^^■hwi^^^^ 




-a- 




^"""♦ftsr 


Ml^ 



A Colonial Mansion. 



158 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Wefws- 
papers 



Libraries 



were few. Most of the books read by the colonists were im- 
ported from England. The chief work of the colonial printer 
was to publish pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers. The 
first permanent newspaper in the colonies was published in 
Boston in 1704 and was called the Boston Nezvs-Letter. By 
1775 there were in all the colonies thirty-seven newspapers, 
chiefly weeklies. The daily newspai)er had not yet appeared. 
That other handmaid of education, the public library, was as 
yet unknown. In the large towns and cities there were here 
and there libraries under society ownership, but these 
could be used only by a chosen few ; the masses had no share 
in them. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. English Colonial theory and policy: Bogart, 90-94. 

2. Give an account of the regulation of colonial commerce: Bo- 
gart, 94-103. 

3. Non-importation measures: Bogart, 105-110. 

4. Social progress in the colonies: Bassett, 134-157. 

5. Describe New York in 1760 following the description of a con- 
temporary: Hart II, 87-91. 

6. Colonial agriculture : Coman, 56-63. 

7. Money: Forman, 304-309. 

8. Colonial paper money: C. J. Bullock, Monetary History of the 
United States, 29-59. 

9. Education at the end of the colonial period: Dexter, 73-89- 
ID. Dates for the chronological table: 1751, 1764. 

II. Special Reading. Sydney George Fisher, Men, Women and 
Manners in Colonial Times. O. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Gov- 
ernment. J. L. Bishop, History of American Manufactures Vol I. 
Bancroft II, 389-405. G. L. Beer, British Colonial Policy. 



XVI 
THE QUARREL 

Almost immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763^ 
the colonies and the mother-country began to quarrel. What led to the 
quarrel between Great Britain and her American colonies? What were 
the merits of the controversy? What efforts were made in behalf of 
peace? What acts of violence made peace impossible? 

52. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COLONIES AND THE 
MOTHER COUNTRY IN 1763. 

We have learned that by 1700 the colonies were already The 

N -r, ^1 Virtual 

in many respects their own masters (p. 113). By 1763 the indepeu- 

spirit of independence in the colonies had become so pro- of the 

^ ^ . ^ Colonies 

nounced that the authority of England was almost wholly 

disregarded. A certain loyalty to the King, it is true, was 
still professed and the royal governors and judges were still 
respected and obeyed, but the authority of Parliament, the 
real and supreme instrument of English power, was called 
into question, derided, and sometimes even ignored outright. 
This was not to be wondered at, for Parliament from the 
beginning had pursued the policy of letting the colonies alone. 
A law of Parliament did not apply to the colonies unless such 
application was specifically provided in the statute, and it was 
seldom that Parliament passed a law affecting the colonies un- 
less it was one for the regulation of navigation or trade. 

As years went on this independence of the colonies became England 
more and more a source of bickering and strife, and as early to^ Assert 
as 1750 the English government was on the point of assert- thority' 
ing its authority and strengthening its methods of colonial ad- 
ministration. But the French and Indian War caused a post- 
ponement of the reforms. After the expulsion of the French, 
however, England resolutely undertook to deal firmly with 
the colonies. She felt that she could now be firm with per- 
fect safety, for the French were no longer present in America 

i;5P 



i6o 



ADVAx\XED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Gn^^land 
Plans 
to Tax 
the 
Colonies 



The 
Preva- 
lence of 
Smug- 
gling 



to make her afraid. She had no misgivings as to success in 
deahng with the colonies for the Seven Years' War and the 
treaty of Paris had left Great Britain the most powerful na- 
tion on the globe. 

5,?. QUESTIONS OF TAXATION. 

The first thing to which the English government gave its 
attention was the subject of colonial revenue. Much of the 
money which had been spent in driving the French out of 
America had been taken out of the pockets of English tax- 
payers and the heavy debt incurred during +1-2 war had been 
placed upon the shoulders of the English people. As soon as 
tb.e French were out of the way, England determined that 
the colonies should no longer be a burden upon the English 
treasury but that they should be taxed to meet the expenses 
of the troops which were employed in defending the colonies 
and to pay the salaries of governors, judges, and other colonial 
officials. The taxes which the English government intended 
to collect were all to be spent in the colonies. England never 
proposed that any money raised by taxation in America should 
be used for the benefit of herself ; it was all to be spent in 
the colonies and for their own benefit. 

One of the first efforts made by England to increase her 
revenue in the colonies was to check the smuggling which was 
rampant there. The colonists regarded the customs duties 
which England laid upon certain imports as unlawful inter- 
ference with trade, and they resorted to smuggling as an inno- 
cent device to secure redress for their wrongs. Smuggling, 
accordingly, was carried on almost everywhere by almost 
everybody. Even the governors themselves, it was said, some- 
times shared in the profits of smuggling. The customs offi- 
cers, who should have been the enemies of the practice, were 
as guilty as anybody. At one time (1765) Governor Ber- 
nard of IMassachusetts did not believe there was an honest 
customs officer in America. As a result of this wholesale 
smuggling the Navigation Laws were made dead letters, and 
the English government was cheated out of a very consider- 



THE QUARREL i6i 

able revenue. The money received from customs duties 
amounted to almost nothing, while the cost of collecting them 
was far in excess of the revenue received. 

The method employed by the English government to break The 

* -' -' ... . . Writs oi 

up the smuggling was extremely irritating to a liberty-loving Assist 
people. Custom-house officers were authorized to break into 
vessels, warehouses, and dwellings and search for goods 
which were concealed with the view of escaping the customs 
tax. The authority for such a search was a zvrit of assistance 
issued by a court to an officer of the law or to a private citi- 
zen. The writ commanded the person to whom it was di- 
rected " to permit and aid the customs officer to enter ves- 
sels by day or night, and warehouses, cellars, and dwellings 
by day only, and break open chests, boxes, and packages of all 
sorts in the search of contraband goods. The writ was general 
and did not specify a particular house or particular goods 
... It was, in fact, a general authority to the customs officer 
to search everything and violate the ancient maxim that a 
man's house is his castle." ^ Writs of this kind were issued 
in Massachusetts before the close of the French and Indian 
\\'ar, but they were always unpopular. In 1761 James Otis 
came forward and protested against them in a speech charged 
with such eloquence and power that it reached the hearts of 
the people and created a strong sentiment against the action 
of the English government. 

One of the laws which the English government undertook The 
to enforce was the Sugar Act of 1733. This law laid a and 
heavy duty on imported sugar and molasses, but it was so sue- Act 
cessfully evaded by smuggling that it yielded almost no reve- 
nue. So, in 1764 Parliament lowered the duties on sugar and 
molasses to half the existing rate and took vigorous measures 
to enforce the collection of the lower duties. The colonists 
seeing, of course, that threepence paid would be much more 
burdensome than sixpence unpaid, strongly opposed the new 
Sugar Act. Samuel Adams of Boston protested on the ground 

1 S. G. Fisher, " American Independence," Vol. i, p. 52. 



l62 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

thai the law was only preparatory to new taxation. " For if 
our Trade may be taxed," said he, "why not our hmds? 
Why not the produce of our lands, and everything we pos- 
sess or make use of ? ... If Taxes are hiid upon us in any 
shape without our having legal representatives w'here they 
are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free sub- 
jects to the miserable state of Tributary Slaves?" 
The But the English government did not stop with the Sugar 

Act Act. It went on and proposed a law which provided that 

the colonists should place a government stamp ranging in 
price from threepence to ten pounds on a great variety of com- 
mercial and legal documents and upon certain publications, 
such as pamphlets, newspapers, almanacs, and advertisements. 
Grenville, the minister, who came forward with the proposal 
for the stamp tax, was willing that the colonies should sub- 
stitute for the stamp tax a different kind of tax if they de- 
sired to do so, and he gave them an opportunity to express 
their views on the subject. But the colonies were for the most 
part silent. So in March 1765, the Stamp Act was 
passed by Parliament, the vote in its favor being overwhelm- 
ing. 
Resist- Opposition to the Stamp Act first showed itself in Virginia, 

to the In that colony Patrick Henry hurried through the Assembly 
Act (May 1765) a resolution which declared that in respect to 

taxes, Virginia was not subject to the authority of Parlia- 
ment ; that the General Assembly had the exclusive right and 
power to lay taxes upon the inhabitants of the colony, and that 
every attempt to vest such power in any other person or per- 
sons than the General Assembly was illegal, unconstitutional, 
unjust, and destructive of British as well as American liberty. 
Massachusetts was as strongly opposed to the measure as Vn- 
ginia, and in June the General Court proposed a meeting of 
committeemen, or delegates, from all the colonies to secure 
united action in regard to the matter. When the stamps were 
ready for sale, the colonists everywhere refused to buy them, 
and in their resistance to the tax indulged in much riotous and 
disgraceful conduct. 



THE QUARREL 163 

The conference proposed by Massachusetts was held in New The 

. . . stamp 

York in October 176^, nine colonies havm? sent delegates. Act 

' ^ . Congress 

This Stamp Act Congress — as the meetmg was called — 

claimed for Americans the same inherent rights as were en- 
joyed by Englishmen (p. jy^, and declared that except in 
the case of duties on imports the colonists could not be law- 
fully taxed unless by their own consent, given personally, or 
by their representatives. The Congress further declared that 




Patrick Heni-y addressing the Virginia Assembly. 

since the colonists were not represented in Parliament — and 
from the circumstances they could not be — their only law- 
ful representatives were those chosen as members of the colo- 
nial legislatures. The colonial assembly, therefore, was the 
only body that could impose a tax upon the colonists. 

Thus the Stamp Act Congress raised the question whether Taxation 
or not there should be taxation without representation. That Sepre"* 
a satisfactory representation of the colonies in Parliament was ^^^^^^^^^^ 
wholly impracticable and out of the question was perfectly 
clear to everybody who gave the subject careful consideration. 
The colonists did not really want representation in Parlia- 
ment, for they were content with their colonial legislatures. 
Nor were Englishmen willing to accord such representation as 
[the Americans would demand, that is, proportional representa- 
tion. Statesmen in England looked ahead and saw that if the 



1 64 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Paint, 
Glass, and 
Pa pel 
Act 



Itopeal 
of the 
Paint, 
Glass, and 
Paper 
Act 



colonies, growing as they were in population and resources, 
should be allowed seats in Parliament according to numbers, 
it would be only a few decades before the x\merican mem- 
bership in that body would be greater than the English mem- 
bership, and the English would be outvoted. Taxation with- 
out representation did much to bring on the quarrel between 
England and her colonies, but throughout the struggle neither 
side seriously hoped that the remedy of representation would 
be applied or desired that it should be applied. 

So general and so powerful was the opposition to the Stamp 
Act that it was repealed in the year after it was passed. 
Along with the repeal, however, Parliament made a declara- 
tion that the colonies were and of a right ought to be sub- 
ordinate to and dependent upon the Crown and Parliament 
of Great P>ritain, and that the English government had full 
power and authority to make laws for the government of 
the colonies in all cases zvhatever. In this declaration Eng- 
land practically said that although she would repeal the Stamp 
Tax out of deference to the colonies, she would nevertheless 
tax them whenever it was her pleasure to do so, and that she 
would tax them in whatever way she desired. Accordingly, in 
1767 Parliament passed what is known as the Townshend Act, 
or the Paint, Glass, and Paper Act. This law imposed duties 
on glass, paint, paper, and tea imported into the colonies. The 
revenue was to be used for paying the salaries of the governors, 
judges, and other colonial officers, it being the purpose of the 
English government to make these officials independent of the 
assemblies (p. 113). For the collection of the duties, strong 
measures were to be taken: the hated writs of assistance were 
to be employed and persons accused of evading the customs 
duties were to be tried by admiralty courts without juries. 

Parliament hoped that the Paint, Glass, and Paper Act would 
meet with little resistance because it imposed only external 
taxes, the kind of taxes which the colonists had acknowledged 
were 'lawful. But the hope of Parliament proved to be vain. 
When the colonists were brought face to face with an import 
duty which could not be evaded by smuggling, they forgot the 



THE QUARREL 165 

distinction between external and internal taxation, and ob- 
jected to any kind of tax whatever. The opposition to the 
Townshend Act was as strong as it had been to the Stamp 
Act, although it was not so disorderly and riotous. In the 
case of the Townshend Act the colonists were content simply 
to protest strongly against the new duties and to enter into 
agreements not to import English goods so long as the duties 
were laid. The non-importation agreements were so effective 
that, to the alarm of British merchants, English exports to 
America fell within a year fi;om £2,400,000 to £1,600,000. 
In order to remove the disastrous boycott, the Paint, Glass, and 
Paper Act was repealed (April 1770). The duty on tea, how- 
ever, was retained in order that the right of Parliament to 
tax the colonies might still be asserted and maintained. So 
Parliament was almost as unsuccessful with the import taxes 
as it had been with the stamp tax. As for the trifling tax 
which had been retained on tea, that brought England no 
revenue, although, as we shall see, it brought her infinite 
trouble. 

54. PARTY DIVISIONS; LAWLESSNESS. 

The bitter controversy over taxation and the long and Division 
exciting contest with Parliament gradually brought about English 

. . . . Senti- 

a division in sentiment among the people, so that by 1770 two ment 
parties in the colonies were in the process of formation. One 
was the Loyalist or Tory party. This took the side of Eng- 
land in the quarrel and upheld the English government in its 
dealings with the colonists. To the Tory party belonged the 
more important colonial officials and many of the leading men 
of wealth. The other party was known as the American or 
Patriot party. This consisted of men who were intensely 
loyal to America, but cared little for England. The Patriots 
were ready to resist the mother country the moment she at- 
tempted to encroach upon the liberties or independence which 
\ the colonies had so long enjoyed. The Patriot party consisted 
chiefly of the lower and middle classes, although among the 
Patriots were men of substance and rank such as George 



i66 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Loyalists 

and 

Patriots 



The 

Boston 
Massacre 



Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander 
Hamilton, John Dickinson, and John Adams. The Patriot 
party from the beginning was the stronger in New England 
and Virginia, bnt in the Middle Colonies it was not strongly 
supported. 

English sentiment was also divided on the subject of tax- 
ing the Americans, the division following rather closely the 
line of existing party cleavage. The Whigs generally took 
sides with the Patriots. Indeed the Patriots often called them- 
selves Whigs because they felt they 
were in accord with the principles 
of the Whig party in the mother- 
country, a fundamental doctrine of 
that party being that taxation and 
representation are inseparably con- 
nected. The Patriot cause in Eng- 
land was openly espoused in Par- 
liament by able Whig leaders. 
Lord Chatham declared that the 
revolting Americans were Whigs in 
principle and heroes in conduct. 
The Tory party in England was 
ranged almost solidly against the 
Patriots, who as lovers of liberty 
and as advocates of popular gov- 
ernment, were hateful to the Tory mind. There were con- 
tradictions and inconsistencies in the arguments used by the 
Whigs in defense of the Americans and in those used by 
the Tories in opposing them, but as the quarrel deepened party 
division grew sharper until at last the whole strength of the 
Tories with George III at their head was thrown against the 
Americans, while the Whigs made the cause of the colonies 
their own. 

The quarrel about taxes, besides dividing men into parties, 
also led to a spirit and condition of lawlessness which by 
1770 was beginning to resemble rebellion. Indeed, Parlia- 
ment in 1769 declared that the colonies were in a state of dis- 




George III. 



THE QUARREL 167 

obedience to law and government, and events soon showed 
that this judgment was not too harsh. In 1770 occurred the 
shooting affair called the " Boston Massacre." For several 
years British troops had been stationed in Boston to assist the 
revenue officers in collecting the odious customs duties, and 
the presence of the red-coats was extremely irritating to the 
citizens. The Bostonians taunted and insulted the soldiers, 
and the soldiers repaid the Bostonians in kind. At last there 
was an outbreak of violence. One night (March 5, 1770), 
the citizens began to pelt the soldiers with snowballs and 
dared them to fire. The red-coats fired and four Americans 
were killed. The soldiers were arrested and tried. Two of 
them were slightly punished while all the others were ac- 
quitted. The court and jury were inclined to the opinion that 
the soldiers had been sorely provoked and that they were not 
seriously to blame for firing. The Patriot party, however, 
painted the affair in its darkest colors, representing it to be 
a " ferocious and unprovoked assault by brutal soldiers upon 
a defenseless people." A meeting of citizens was held in 
Faneuil Hall, where Samuel Adams urged that the troops 
be removed from Boston, contending that the British gov- 
ernment had no more right to maintain a standing army in 
the colonies than it had to tax them. So, the troops were re- 
moved to a place where their presence caused less resentment, 
and for a time there was peace in Massachusetts. But more 
lawlessness soon showed itself in the neighboring colony of 
Rhode Island. In Tune 1772, the Gaspee, a British revenue The 

. . ' , . Burning- 

vessel which had been active m preventmg smugglmg, ran of the 

ashore not far from Providence. When the news reached the 
town, a party headed by a prominent merchant was organized 
to destroy the vessel, and at midnight she was boarded, her 
crew set ashore, and the hated craft was burned to the wa- 
ter's edge. An attempt was made to bring the offenders to 
justice, but " no one could be found who knew anything about 
the matter any more than if it had been a case of spontaneous 
combustion." 

In the meantime, the Patriot party was busy in its efforts 



i68 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Com- 
mitteas 
of 

Corre- 
spondence 



Boycot- 
ting the 
Tea 



to weld the colonies into some kind of union, so that if trouble 
arose the full strength of the Patriots could be thrown against 
England. In Massachusetts, under the leadership of Samuel 
Adams, Committees of Correspondence were established with 
the view of communicating with the other colonies in refer- 
ence to measures that should be taken to protect the rights 
of Americans. Patriots in Virginia, such as Patrick Henry 
and Thomas Jefferson, heartily approved of such committees, 
and one was appointed to serve in the Old Dominion. By 
July 1773 Committees of Correspondence had been estab- 
lished in six colonies. These committees were the beginning 
of a political union which grew stronger and stronger and 
which within a quarter of a century had developed into the 
great American commonwealth under which we are now liv- 
ing. 

The organization of the Committees of Correspondence was 
followed by acts of disorder and lawlessness. In the autumn 
of 1773 ships of the East India Company began to arrive with 

■ cargoes of tea, an article 

upon 
seen, 

pence per pound) was re- 
tained when the Town- 
shend Act was repealed. 
It was retained as a matter 
of principle. " There must 
be one tax," said Lord 
North, " to keep up the 
right." But eight years of 
discussion had confirmed 
the colonists in the opinion 
that England had no right 
to tax the colonies even to 
the amount of a farthing 
without their consent. So the tea was boycotted as the glass, 
paper, and paint had been. Ships loaded with tea arrived at 
New York, Philadelphia^ Boston, and Annapolis, but at none 




which, as we have 
a small duty (three- 



Tearing down the 
III. in New 



statue of George 
York City. 



THE QUARREL 169 

of these ports could the tea he landed and sold. In Charleston 
tea was landed and stored in vaults. Several years later it was 
sold by the authority of South Carolina and the money was 
paid into the State treasury. In Boston the Patriot party de- 
manded that the tea be sent back to England in the ships in 
which it came. When the consignees of the tea refused to 
do this, they were branded as " enemies to their country." 
But the Patriots were not satisfied with merely calling names. 
They determined that the tea should not be landed. A band The 

. . Boston 

of men disguised as Indians boarded the vessels contammg Tea Party 
the tea and threw into the Boston harbor the contents of 
three hundred chests. At Annapolis the citizens compelled 
a rich merchant to set fire to his own ship which was loaded 
with tea. 

55. THE INTOLERABLE ACTS. 

The destruction of the tea was a wanton and deliberate de- 
struction of property, and the outrage convinced the English The 
government that the time had come when the colonies must abi.r 
feel the heavy hand of its power. So, Parliament quickly 
1 passed (1774) a series of repressive measures designed to bring 
the Patriots of Massachusetts to their senses : ( i ) No ship 
was to enter or leave the port of Boston until the town should 
pay for the tea; (2) Massachusetts was to lose its charter 
and was to be brought under the King's direct control; (3) 
English officers or soldiers when questioned in the colonies 
concerning acts done while in the discharge of their duties, 
might be taken to England for trial ; (4) Troops might be 
quartered in any colony, and if quarters were not promptly 
furnished, " uninhabited houses, barns, or other buildings might 
be used, payment at reasonable rates being made for such use." 
These four intolerable acts — as the coercive measures were 
called — were aimed directly at Massachusetts. 

A fifth act had no direct reference to Massachusetts xhe 
i and was not intended to be offensive to New England in Act 
j any way. This was the Quebec Act, which annexed to 
the province of Quebec the region which soon came to be 



170 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

known as the Northwest Territory and inckided what are now 
the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 
This region, by the terms of the act, was to be ruled by 
an arbitrary government. It was to have no elective legis- 
lature, and, except for local purposes, it was to be taxed 
by Parliament. Moreover it was provided by the act that the 
Catholic religion might be freely exercised throughout the 
region. Although the Quebec Act was an honest attempt 
by England to provide a suitable government for a part of the 
territory taken from France in 1763, it was nevertheless re- 
garded by the colonies as inimical to their interests. It seemed 
to give the Ohio country over to a French rather than an 
English civilization. The measure pleased Canada greatly, 
but it displeased Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, the 
colonies which claimed territory in the region, and were ex- 
pecting some day to profit by their claims. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Describe the British Empire as it existed under George III: 
Howard, 22-46. 

2. The Tea Party and the Coercive Acts : Howard, 259-279. 

3. Taxation : Forman, 265-270 ; 296-302. 

4. Fundamental and immediate causes of the American Revolution: 
Bassett, 161-176; Van Tyne, 3-24. 

5. May Parliament tax Americans? Howard, 126-130, 164-167. 

6. Dates for the chronological table : 1733, 1764, 1765, 1770, 1774. 

7. Summarize the causes of the quarrel between Great Britain and 
her American colonies. 

8. What arguments could the Loyalists have used in defense 
of their loyalty to Great Britain? Why did the Americans not 
desire representation? Did the Americans desire taxation with rep- 
resentation? Give the history of the American flag. In what year 
did the population of the United States begin to exceed that of Great 
Britain? 

9. Special Reading. Richard Frothingham, Rise of the Republic of 
the United States. G. O. Trevelyan, The American Revolution. Syd- 
ney George Fisher, The Struggle for American Independence. 



XVII 

BLOWS AND SEPARATION 

The passage of the Intolerable Acts caused the Patriots of Massachu- 
setts to hasten the work of organization, and when the EngHsh Gov- 
ernment undertook to carry the acts into effect it found itself opposed 
by a force of American soldiers. Bloody encounters followed, a cen- 
tral government was established by the colonists, and independence 
declared. 

56. THE SPIRIT OF UNION. 

On the first of June 1774, the law which closed the port Boston 
of Boston went into effect, and it was executed with great leaguered 
rigor. " Not a scow could be manned by oars to bring an ox, 
or a sheep, or a bundle of hay from the islands. All water 
carriage froin wharf to wharf was strictly forbidden. The 
fishermen from Marblehead when from their hard pursuit 
they bestowed quintals of dried fish on the poor of Boston, 
were obliged to transport their offerings in wagons by a cir- 
cuit of thirty miles." (Bancroft.) 

The punishment inflicted upon Boston was resented not Assist- 
only in Massachusetts but in all the other colonies as well, for® 
Assistance for the beleaguered town came from every direc- *'^*°° 
tion. South Carolina sent two hundred barrels of rice. North 
Carolina and Maryland made liberal contributions in money. 
From near-by Connecticut came large supplies of provisions 
and with them the cheering words, " We are willing to sacri- 
fice all that is dear and valuable to us rather than suffer the 
patriotic inhabitants of Boston to be overwhelmed by their 
adversaries." From far-off Virginia came money and sup- 
plies, and the sympathetic words of George Washington, "If 
need be, I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my 
own expense, and niarch myself at their head for the relief 
of Boston." 

171 



172 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



THe 
First 
Conti- 
nental 
Congress 



The harsh treatment of Boston also hastened the establish- 
ment of a central organ of government through which the 
colonies might act in unison. The chief agency in bringing 
about the desired union was the Committees of Correspond- 
ence (p. i68), which were already in existence. Through 
these committees the colonies were urged to send delegates — 
in some cases the committees themselves sent the delegates — 
to a colonial or continental congress to meet at Philadelphia 
in September 1774. All the colonies (excepting Georgia), 
acting in most cases through their legislatures, sent delegates 
to the proposed Congress, which became known as the First 



f H i L A D E L P H I A, 

InCONGREJS, Iburjday^ September 22, 1774.- 

RnsOLVFD, 

^■^ H.A T th.c Congrefs requeft the Merchants and 
Others, ill ihe ivvcra! <-.olonics, not to fetid to 
Great Britain any Orders for Goods, at\d to dired the 
execution of all Orders already fent, to be delayed or fuf- 
pcndeJ, uRtil the fcnfe of the Congrels, on the means 
to be taken for the prefervation ot the Liberties of 
America, \> made public. 

A^. ExtraSi from tj>c Minutety 

Ca4.Ri^ji_ Thomson 5 Sec. 

Resolution Boycotting British Goods. 



Continental Congress. In this body were many of the leading 
men of America : John Adams and Samuel Adams from 
Massachusetts; Stephen Hopkins and Samuel West from 
Rhode Island; Roger Sherman and Silas Deane from Con- 
necticut ; John Jay and Philip Livingston from New York ; 
John Dickinson and Joseph Callaway from Pennsylvania; 
Samuel Chase from Maryland ; Peyton Randolph, Henry Lee, 
George Washington, and Patrick Henry from Virginia; John 
Rutledge and Christopher Gadsden from South Carolina. The 
congress, of course, had no powers that it could claim as 
lawfully belonging to it; it was simply a gathering of British 



BLOWS AND SEPARATION 173 

subjects met to discuss the unhappy relations which existed 
between England and her colonies and to restore harmony if 
that were possible. The congress approved the opposition of 
Massachusetts to the Intolerable Acts and suggested that if 
force was used by England, all America ought to go to the 
assistance of the oppressed colony; it declared that the colo- 
nies could not be taxed except by their own assemblies ; and — • 
what was most important — it planned for an American " As- 
sociation," the purpose of which was to carry into eflect a 
policy of non-importation and non-consumption of British 
goods. Tlie congress of 1774 provided for the holding of an- 
other congress in Alay 1775, at Philadelphia, " unless the 
redress of grievances which we have discussed be obtained be- 
fore that time." 

57. WAR AND REVOLT. 

But the grievances were not to be at once redressed, and Lexing- 
stirring events were to occur before the dale set for the sec- and 

Concord 

end congress. General Gage, who had been made Governor 
of Massachusetts and had been placed in complete command 
at Boston, was checked at every turn by the actions of the 
Patriots. The authority of the new royal government for 
Massachusetts received no recognition outside of Boston, for 
the Patriots formed a provincial congress which virtually 
ruled the colony. This provincial congress, a wholly revolu- 
tionary body, in utter defiance of Gage's authority, organized 
regiments of colonial soldiers and before the winter of 1775 
had passed eastern Massachusetts was alive with troops. So 
Gage determined to disarm the provincials and destroy their 
munitions of war. On April 19, 1775, he sent a detachment 
of troops to destroy the military stores at Concord and to ar- 
rest Samuel Adams and John Hancock at Lexington. The 
expedition was a wretched failure. At Concord the British 
troops met such a sturdy resistance from the rustic militia 
that they beat a hasty retreat to Boston, losing many of their 
men by the way, and barely escaping capture. 

The British garrison at Boston was now closely besieged 



174 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Bunker 
HIU 



The 

Colonies 



Revolt 



by the colonial troops that kept swarming to the scene and in 
Jnne the red-coats were compelled to meet the Americans in 
a pitched battle on Breed's HilP (Bunker Hill). The Brit- 
ish won the hill and held it, but a few victories of this kind 
would have resulted in the complete destruction of their army, 
for they lost more than a thousand men, while the Americans 
lost less than five hundred. " In the eight years of the Revo- 
lution," says F. \'. Greene, " there was no battle more bloody, 

none more impor- 
tant. The Ameri- 
cans without prop- 
er organization, 
equipment, or sup- 
plies, had 
the best 
troops of 
and had 



fought 
regular 
Europe 
repulsed 
them until their 
ammunition had 
given out. All the 
advantages of vic- 
tory were on their side." After this disastrous battle the 
British soldiers in Boston did not again encounter the Ameri- 
cans, but remained shut up in the town for nearly a year. 

The news of Lexington and Concord was carried by swift 
relays of heralds from one end of the land to the other, and 
by the middle of 1775 ^^^ ^^^^ colonies were seething with the 
spirit of revolt. In colony after colony the legislature passed 
into the control of the Patriots, and the royal governor, the 
representative of British sovereignty, was forl)idden to exer- 
cise his functions. In some of the colonics the governor was 
forciI:)ly ejected from his office. This was the case in Virginia, 
where the banished governor took refuge on a British man- 
of-war at Yorktown and undertook to govern his province from 

1 The Americans, preparing for the battle at night, mistook Breed's Ilill for 
Bunker Hill, which they had intended to fortify and which gave its name to the 
battle 




Boston and vicinity. 



BLOWS AND SEPARATION 175 

/ 
his place on the water. But his proclamations were disre- 
garded and laughed at. In New York also the royal governor 
fled to the water and from the refuge of a ship vainly en- 
deavored to govern his rebellious people. And so it was in 
every colony at the end of 1775: outside the beleaguered town 
of Boston the power of government was everywhere wielded 
by Patriots, 

58. THE LOYALISTS. 
But the Patriots did not everywhere have smooth sailing. TheOp. 

-' '^ position 

In some of the colonies they w^ere strongly opposed by the ?^*^|. ., 
Loyalists, who by 1775 had come to believe that the Patriots 
were downright rebels and that their conduct should no longer 
be tolerated. In some places, as in New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, the Loyalists were very numerous, and they had it 
in their power to do much harm to the patriot cause. They 
could keep the British informed of the movements of the 
patriot forces; they could supply the British troops with pro- 
visions ; they could enlist in the British regiments. They 
could do these things and did do them as far as they dared. 
But the Patriots saw that the Loyalists would be a most dan- 
gerous foe and at the outset they undertook to suppress and 
crush the Loyalist party completely. In order to do this they 
resorted to measures of the utmost severity. One of the 
first things they did was to disarm the Loyalists. They en- The 
tered the homes of Loyalists and seized all the weapons and ment 
ammunition they could find. . This disarming, systematic and Loyal- 
thorough, was a most important step, for without their guns 
the Loyalists could offer but a lame and impotent resistance. 
But the Patriots did not stop with the disarming of their 
opponents; they subjected them to a reign of terror. The 
Loyalists were " ridden and tossed on fence rails ; were gagged 
and bound for days at a time; pelted with stones; fastened in 
rooms where there was a fire with the chimney stopped on top. 
Their homes and shops were burned ; they were compelled to 
pay the guards who watched them in their homes." ^ Such 

1 Fisher, " American Revolution," I, 26.%. 



176 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



treatment was violative of every principle of civil liberty, but 
the Patriots justified their conduct on the ground that an 
American Loyalist was as dangerous as a British soldier and 
had to be dealt with as severely. " A Loyalist," said they, 
" is a thing whose head is in England, whose body is in 
America, and its neck ought to be stretched." The rough 
treatment to which the Loyalists were early subjected had 
the effect of completely subduing and cowing them. If they 
had been permitted to gain a headway and exert their full 
strength, the course of events might have been entirely dif- 
ferent from what it was, for in many places the Loyalists 
outnumbered the Patriots. 



The 

Meeting 

of the 

Second 

Couti- 

nental 

Congress 



The 
Meas- 
ures 
of the 
Congress 



59. THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

The Loyalists were strongly opposed to the meeting of 
a second Congress, but they were terrorized, outvoted, an'^ 
otherwise beaten down in their opposition. All the colonies 
were successful in sending delegates to the Second Conti- 
nental Congress which met at Philadelphia, May lo, 1775 
— the natal day of the United States, for with the assembling 
of this Congress the American government had its begin- 
ning. At that moment the colonies and England were in a 
state of actual warfare. The Lexington affair had occurred 
only a few weeks before, and on the very day upon which 
the Congress met, an important fort ^ fell into the hands 
of the Patriots. Not only was war in progress, but civil 
government in the colonies was in the utmost confusion be- 
cause of the ejection of the royal governors and of the sub- 
stitution of a new authority in their stead. 

In this chaotic state of affairs the eyes of the country 
turned to the Congress at Philadelphia. The provincial con- 
gress of Massachusetts sought advice " respecting taking up 

1 This was Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. The capture of this fort 
was planned by Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen, a dasiiing leader of the Green 
Mountain Boys of Vermont. Arnold and Allen acting together with a few 
troops surprised the fort and as it had but a handful of men it was obliged to 
surrender (May lo. 1775). The surrender of Crown Point quickly followed. 



BLOWS AND SEPARATION 177 

and exercising the powers of civil government " and pledged 
its submission to such advice as might be given. Here was 
a grave question indeed. The provincial congress of Mas- 
sachusetts was an extra-legal revolutionary body acting in 
open defiance of Parliament ; was it to be recognized as a 
lawful body? The Continental Congress, after considering 
the question carefully, decided that no obedience was due 
to the Intolerable Acts which (p. 169) changed the Govern- 
ment of Massachusetts, and that the provincial congress had 
the right to organize a new assembly. The Congress was also 
expected to deal with the military situation and it did not 
shrink from the task. It adopted as its own the troops 
which had gathered around Boston, and provided for this 
new continental army a full staff of officers. But since 
the army had to be equipped and supported, it was necessary 
for Congress to deal with certain questions of finance. For 
the purchase of powder six thousand pounds sterling were 
borrowed and thus a national debt was incurred. To meet 
other expenses, two million dollars in paper money ^ was 
issued. Thus in a business-like way Congress dealt with 
the various questions that came up before it. It was an extra 
legal body, to be sure, and it possessed only such powers 
as it chose to assume, yet it had the confidence and sup- 
port of the Patriot party and it felt that it could act as 
a duly authorized government is accustomed to act. Besides 
providing for the organization and support of the army, the 
Second Continental Congress at its first session put itself 
into communication with foreign nations ; it assumed the 
management of the post-office, and it created a department 

1 As the Revolution advanced, issues of paper money became larger and more 
frequent, and by 1779 more than $200,000,000 of paper currency was in circula- 
tion. In addition to this sum about $200,000,000 of paper money was issued 
upon the authority of the individual States. At first the paper money was ac- 
cepted willingly and circulated freely at its face value, but in 1777 it began to 
decline in value, and by 1779, eight dollars in paper money was worth only one 
dollar in silver. Congress enacted that the man who refused to accept the Con- 
tinental paper was an enemy of his country. People, however, would not receive 
it. It continued to depreciate in value until it became absolutely worthless — 
" not worth a Continental." 



178 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

of Indian afifairs. Thus it gave form and direction to the 
scattered and unorganized forces of the colonies and laid the 
foundation of a central government and of national sov- 
ereignty. 



Washing- 
ton, 

the Com- 
mander- 
in-Chief 



The 

Evacua- 
tion of 
Boston 



60. THE BRITISH EXPELLED FROM BOSTON. 

On June 16, 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously 
elected George Washington the commander-in-chief of the 
newly organized army. Washington set out at once for Bos- 
ton. A few hours after leaving Philadelphia he received news 
of the battle of Bunker Hill. Arriving in Cambridge in 
July, he took command of the forces which had gathered 
to try conclusions with the British in Boston. His army 
consisted of about 15,000 troops, poorly armed, raw, and 
inexperienced, but capable of hard fighting, as Bunker Hill 
had clearly shown. The first task of Washington was to 
drill his men and equip them with ammunition and supplies.^ 
This he did with such success and despatch that, by the open- 
ing of spring in 1776 he felt that he could give battle to 
the British. Accordingly, on March 2 he began a furious 
cannonade against his foes in Boston, and on March 4 oc- 
cupied Dorchester Heights, a commanding hill which over- 
looked the town. Here he built forts and planted heavy 
cannon. Howe, who was in command of the British, saw 
that either Washington's forts would have to be taken or 
the British would have to leave Boston. He at first de- 
cided to attack the forts, but a storm arose and interfered 
with this plan so seriously that it was abandoned, and it 
was decided to evacuate the town. So, Howe put his men 
on board ships and sailed away March 17, 1776. taking with 
him about 11,000 soldiers and 1,000 loyalist refugees. He 
left behind him a large amount of supplies and military stores 
of all kinds in excellent condition. This dislodgment of the 

1 While Washington was drilling his army, Richard Montgomery and Arnolrl 
undertook to capture Quebec, Montgomery advancing by way of Lake Champlain 
and Arnold by the way of the Maine wilderness. The two armies joined and laid 
siege to Quebec, but were unable to take it. 



BLOWS AND SEPARATION 179 

British from their position in Boston was the first stroke 
which Washington made, and it was a most successful one, 
for it rid New England of the British troops. As far as 
actual warfare was concerned, therefore, the Revolution in 
New England ended almost as soon as it began. 

61. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
The expulsion of the British from Boston was soon fol- Lord 

North's 

lowed by an event for which the Patriots had long been Plan of 

... . Concilia- 

eagerly waitmg. This was the declaration by Congress of "on 
the independence of the colonies. Leaders like John Adams, 
Jefferson, and Dickinson, for a long time shrank from a 
measure so desperate as complete separation. Yet every week 
was hurrying them on to take the fatal step. It is true there 
were efforts at conciliation. Lord North proposed (June 
1775) a plan by which Parliament was to declare its sov- 
ereign authority over the colonies while the colonies were 
to be allowed to tax themselves provided they did this in 
a way that was satisfactory to Parliament. The King and 
Parliament approved of the plan, but the colonists would 
not accede to it. Indeed, after the fighting in Massachusetts 
began, neither side was in a humor for compromise. By 
the end of 1775 the English government had shown plainly 
that it would be satisfied with nothing less than the complete 
submission of the colonists. In December 1775, Parliament ijie 
passed the law known as the Prohibitory Act, by which all to'r'y.^ct 
nations were prohibited from trading with the colonies, and 
all ships engaged in colonial trade were to be forfeited with 
their cargoes and become lawful prizes of war. This Act 
was virtually a declaration of war. It quickened the spirit 
of independence and hastened separation. It gave the col- 
onists what they regarded as a just excuse for throwing off 
all allegiance to the King. " It throws thirteen colonies," 
said John Adams, " out of the Royal protection and makes 
us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties." 
Congress when it heard of the Act (March 21, 1776) re- 
sponded by promptly passing a retaliatory measure which gave 



i8o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Paine '8 
Common 
Sense 



The 

Declara- 
tion 
of 

Inde- 
pendence 



Americans permission to fit out j^rivate armed vessels and 
prey on British commerce. 

The feehng created hy the Prohibitory Act was intensified 
by the sentiments expressed in Thomas Paine's Common 
Sense, a pamphlet which was published early in 1776 and 
scattered broadcast over the land. " I challenge," said 
Paine in his passionate appeal to the Patriots, " I challenge 
the warmest advocate of reconciliation to show a single ad- 
vantage this continent can reap by being connected with 
Great Britain. Everything that is right or reasonable pleads 
for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice 
of Nature cries, 'Tis time to jiart. lu'cn the distance at 
which the Almighty hath placed England and America is 
a strong and natural proof that the authority of one over 
the other was never the design of Heaven. I am not in- 
duced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse 
the doctrine of independence. I am clearly, positively, and 
conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of the 
continent to be so ; that everything short of that is mere 
patchwork." Edition after edition of Common Sense was 
printed and its influence was tremendous. Thousands who 
had been opposed to independence were converted to the 
cause by the telling logic and fervid language of Paine's re- 
markable tractate. 

In the spring of 1776 measures for separation began to 
assume definite form. The first colony to declare outright 
for separation was North Carolina. On April 5, 1775 that 
colony instructed her delegates in Congress to vote for in- 
dependence. On June 7, 1776 Richard Henry Lee of Vir- 
ginia moved in Congress that the colonies be declared 
independent. After two days of debate, action upon the mo- 
tion was postponed for twenty days in order that public 
opinion in the lukewarm colonies, especially in the IMiddle 
Colonies, might have time to crystallize in favor of inde- 
pendence. On the first of July Lee's motion for independence 
was brought up again in Congress and was carried by the 
votes of nine colonies. In this vote New York and Pennsyl- 



BLOWS AND SEPARATION 



i8i 



vania were against independence, Delaware was divided, and 
South Carolina wanted time for further consideration. This 
was granted, and when the question was put to a vote the next 
day (July 2), all the colonies voted for independence except 
New York, which withheld its consent until July 9. Having 
resolved upon independence, Congress at once took up for 

discussion the form 
in which the Decla- 
ration was to be 
made and after a 
long debate agreed 
on the 4th of July 
to the draft sub- 
mitted by Thomas 
Jefferson upon 

whom the impor- 
tant task of writ- 
ing the Declara- 
tion had devolved. 
Congress ordered 
the Declaration to 
be sent to the as- 
semblies of the 
several colonies, 
to various conven- 
tions and commit- 
tees of safety, and 
to all the officers 
of the continental 
armies. In this 
way it was soon 
Everywhere it met 
From 




The manner in which Independence 
was declared, July 4, 1776. 



proclaimed throughout the United States 
with the most enthusiastic ratification and adoption 
New Hampshire to Georgia there were bonfires, torchlight 
processions, the firing of guns and the ringing of bells. " The 
people," said Samuel Adams, " seemed to recognize the resolu- 
tion as though it was a decree promulgated from heaven." 



l82 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The outbreak of the wrir : Van Tyno, 25-^('); Cliannin<j; III, 155- 
181. 

2. The organization of an army: Van Tyne, 37-49. 

3. The spirit of independence : Van Tyne, 50-65 ; Channing, 182- 

195- 

4. Drafting the Declaration of Independence: Halsey III, 132-141 ; 
Channing III, 196-206. 

5. The rule of King Mob: Hart II, 458-461. 

6. Give an account of Washington's appointment as commander-in- 
chief following Irving's account: Halsey III, 1 18-126. 

7. The activities of the Second Continental Congress: Hart II, 
5^5-530. 

8. The Battle of Bunker Hill: Hitchcock, 102-117. 

9. Franklin's account of the state of the colonies: Halsey II, 407- 
411. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1774, i775, 1776. 

11. After consulting Sidney George Fisher's American Revolution 
and John Fiske's IVar for Independence prepare a paper on the 
Life and Character of Samuel Adams. What two buildings in Boston 
became famous because of the Revolutionary meetings held \n them? 
Give an account of woman's work for the soldiers of the Revolution. 
Sketch the career of Governor Hutchinson. Read in the class a strik- 
ing passage from the speech made by John Adams on the Boston 
Massacre: Harding, 11-23. Read in the class "The Liberty Tree": 
Hart II, 454. Read in the class Wirt's account of Patrick Henry's 
Call to Arms : Halsey III, 103-108. What was the Mecklenburg 
Declaration of Independence? 

12. Special Reading. Bancroft, Vol. V. John Fiske, American Rez'O- 
hition. H. C. Lodge, Story of the Revolution. 



XVIII 
THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 

After the colonists declared their independence, they were com- 
pelled to win it with the sword. What was the story of their struggle? 
How did they compare with the enemy in point of strength? What 
plan of campaign was directed against them? What battles did they 
fight? What aid did they receive? What was the outcome of the 
struggle and what were the terms of peace? 

62. THE CONTESTANTS AND THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 
The declaration of independence did not change the plans The 

. . . , Contest- 

of either the British or the Americans : it simply nerved the ants 

■' Corn- 

arms of both contestants and caused both to throw their pared 

full strength into the war that was already in progress. 
Early in 1776 the English government was planning to send 
against the colonists the greatest force that had ever crossed 
the Atlantic, and by the time independence was declared, 
50,000 soldiers under British command were available for 
service in America. Of this force about 17,000 were mer- 
cenary troops, chiefly Hessians. Against this British array 
the Americans could offer an army whose paper strength 
was about 33,000, but whose actual fighting strength was 
hardly 20,000. " On the one side," says F. V. Greene, " were 
the best regular troops of Europe, commanded and led by 
generals of wide experience and personal courage, . . . well 
equipped and supplied from the ample resources of a wealthy 
nation. On the other side was an irregular force enlisted for 
a short period and constantly changing, without military train- 
ing or discipline, without arsenals, factories, or depots of sup- 
plies, and without money or financial credit ; but animated with 
a fiery passion for liberty and a firm belief in the righteousness 
of their cause and a firm determination to redress their griev- 

183 



i84 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Geograph- 
ical 
and 

Economic 
Condi- 
tions 



The 

Plan of 
Cam- 
paign 



ances at any sacrifice; commanded by a soldier and statesman 
[Washington] of lofty character, with varied military ex- 
perience and military instincts and abilities of the highest 
order. What one side lacked, the other possessed. The odds 
were about even and the contest was not uneciua!." 

The British plan of campaign was determined largely by 
geographical and economic conditions. The Hudson River 
and the Potomac River divided the colonies, — or States as 
they could be called after the Declaration of Independence, — 
into three distinct groups: the four New England States with 
a population of about three-fourths of a million ; the Middle 
States with a population of something less than a million ; and 
the Southern States with a population of something more 
than a million. New England and the Southern States were 
so widely separated that they could support each other only 
with the greatest difificulty. Troops could not pass from 
New England to the South by water because England had 
blockaded all the American ports and was in full command 
of the sea. To pass by land was impracticable, because a 
march from Boston to Savannah would have consumed sixty 
days. It took about thirty days for a letter to pass from 
General Washington in New York to General Greene in 
the Carolinas. The Declaration of Independence was known 
about as soon in Paris as it was in Charleston. Moreover, 
the three groups of States were separated in spirit by the 
fact that each had its own peculiar economic life: New Eng- 
land was deeply interested in the fisheries and the ocean 
trade ; the Middle Group in the raising of food supplies ; and 
the Southern Group in the production of tobacco and rice. 

Now the British when making out their plan of war kept 
in mind the lines of cleavage by which the three groups 
were already separated, and planned a series of operations 
by which the sections might be forced still further apart, 
hoping that when the groups were completely separated, they 
could be dealt with one at a time and thus easily conquered. 
So, they determined at the outset to make two bold strokes. 
First, they would carry the war into the South, conquer that 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 185 

section, and then conciliate it and detach it from its allegiance 
to the cause of independence. They thought conciliation would 
be easy because the social and commercial ties between the 
South and England were really very strong (p. 152). Sec- 
ond, they would take and hold the Hudson River and Lake 
Champlain, then drive the wedge between New England and 
the Middle States, and thus make it impossible for these two 
groups to communicate with each other. 

63. THE CAMPAIGN AT THE NORTH. 
The campaign against the South quickly terminated in Around 
failure. On June 2^, 1776, the British attacked Charleston, York 
but were foiled by the determined resistance of troops under 
the command of General William Moultrie. After this re- 
pulse, the British abandoned operations in the South for more 
than two years. The movement for gaining possession of 
the Hudson Valley began about the same time as the move- 
ment against the South, but it met with greater success. The 
British planned that General Howe should gain possession 
of the lower Hudson, while General Carleton was to come 
down from Canada and gain control of the upper Hudson. 
Howe arrived at Staten Island near New York on July 5, 
1776, with 25,000 men. Washington was on the ground with 
18,000 men. Howe attacked the Americans at Brooklyn on 
Long Island and inflicted upon them a humiliating defeat 
(August 27, 1776). After this engagement the two armies 
for several months strove for the possession of New York 
City. By the middle of November, Fort Washington with 
nearly 3,000 prisoners of war had been captured by the 
British, and the lower Hudson for a distance of forty miles 
above New York was safely in their hands, where it re- 
mained until the war was over. 

After the loss of Fort Washington, General Washington in 

'^ . . ^ North- 

beat a retreat across New Jersey, the British army closely pur- ern 

suing the Americans but never quite overtaking them. At Jersey 

Newark, as the Americans moved out of one end of the town 

the British came in at the other. At Trenton, as the last 



i86 



ADVANCKD AMERICAN HISTORY 



boat carrying llic Americans crossed the Delaware, Howe's 
army arrived just in time to be too late to interfere with 
the crossing. It seemed as if Howe calculated with the 
greatest nicety the exact time necessary for the enemy to 
make his escape. Near Trenton Washington turned ujjon 
his pursuers. On Christmas night, 1776, he recrossed the 




Washington's movements in 1776. 



Delaware and the next morning, with a greatly diminished 
army, attacked a corps of Hessian troops and captured nearly 
a thousand ]irisoners. Cornwallis rushed to the scene but 
Washington eluded him and marched to Princeton where he 
met the British and defeated three of their regiments (January 
3, 1777). " To military students," says General F. V. Greene, 
" no page in historv is more worthv of studv in every detail 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 187 

than these fourteen clays in New Jersey. From Christmas, 
1776 to January' 7, 1777, Washington in very truth snatched 
victory out of the jaws of defeat. . . . The astounding hut 
well-deserved results of the whole movement at once and 
forever established Washington's reputation as a soldier." 
After the battle at Princeton, the American army stationed 
itself at Morristown, where it passed the winter. 

According to the plan of campaign, after Howe had cap- Around 
tured New York, he should have moved up the Hudson to pi»ia 
Albany, but by the strange remissness of the English gov- 
ernment he had received no instructions to do this. So in- 
stead of advancing to Albany he decided to move against 
Philadelphia, the home of Congress and the capital of the 
new-born nation. In July 1777 he took his army by sea 
from New York to the head of the Chesapeake Bay and 
landed near the town of Elkton, in Maryland. Washington 
was aware of Howe's movements and was close at hand 
when the landing was made. He tried to check Howe's ad- 
vance at Brandy wine (September 11, 1777), but failed. 
Plowe pushed on and entered Philadelphia, stationing the 
main body of his troops just outside the city at German- 
town. On October 4 Washington gave battle to the British 
at Germantown but failed of success. Howe was thus secure 
in the possession of Philadelphia. His army remained in 
the capital city for seven months, absolutely inactive, " its 
officers engaged in the Mischianza and other foolish gay- 
eties." Washington spent the winter at Valley Forge where 
the suffering of his men from cold and hunger was heart- 
rending. 

While things were going badly for the Americans around in 
Philadelphia, fortune was smiling upon them in northern New em 
York. With the view of carrying out the original plan of York 
campaign. General John Burgoyne, who had replaced Carle- 
ton in Canada, began in June 1777, the march from Canada 
to Albany, where he was expecting — but expecting in vain 
— to meet Howe. He sailed up Lake Champlain and drove 
the Americans from Ticonderoga (p. 176). But his path 



i88 



ADVANCED AAIERICAN HISTORY 



was soon beset by great difficulties. The Americans had re- 
moved the food supphcs from his Hne of i^iarch and had 
felled trees to obstruct the movement of his army, ilis pro- 
visions having been exhausted, he despatched a force to 
Bennington, Vermont, to capture some stores and munitions 
which he knew were there. But the detachment was met 
(August i6, 1777) by Colonel John Stark and was captured 
almost to a man. Burgoyne was expecting aid from General 
St. Leger, who was to land at Oswego and move down 




Washing'ton's movements in 1777. 



Sara- 
toga 



the Mohawk Valley to Albany. But here too, Burgoyne's 
expectations were vain, for St. Leger met General Herkimer 
(August 6, 1777) at Oriskany where his advance was 
checked. Meanwhile the British army was growing smaller 
every day, while the American army was being recruited by 
troops who were arriving from almost every direction. 
Nevertheless, in spite of disappointments and disasters, Bur- 
goyne pushed south to Saratoga, where he met the American 
army under General Horatio Gates and was defeated. 
Eighteen days later the struggle was renewed, but Burgoyne 
was surrounded on all sides and further resistance was use- 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 



189 



less. He was forced to surrender (October 17) and nearly 
6,000 British soldiers were made prisoners of war. 

The victory at Sara- 
toga had a profound 
and far-reaching influ- 
ence upon the course 
of the war : it renewed 
the courage of the 
Americans at a time 
when their cause was 
threatened with fail- 
ure ; it frustrated com- 
pletely the British plan 
of campaign, for it 
left the Hudson, ex- 
cept at its mouth, in 
the permanent control 
of the Americans ; it 
struck a blow at the 
pride of England, and 
caused her to offer to 
the Americans almost 
everything they wished 
except independence ; it gained for the young American nation 
the respect of the nations of Europe; and above all it led to 
an alliance with France. 




Burgoyne's invasion of New York and 
scene of border warfare. 



64. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 
The most important result of the victory at Saratoga was The 

. • . Atti- 

the effect it had upon France. From the beginning this tude of 
great rival of England had looked upon the revolt of the 
colonies with interest and pleasure. In 1776 arms, supplies, 
and money were sent from France to the American army 
through unofficial agents, but the French government had 
not yet officially recognized the United States as an inde- 
pendent power. In the effort to secure such recognition, 
Benjamin Franklin had gone to Paris, where . he plead 



igo 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Frank- 
lin 



rU3 
Treaty 



the cause of the American people. FrankHn was at this 
time, in the eyes of Europeans, the greatest of all Americans. 
He was well-known in England for he had resided in London 
for several years, acting as colonial agent for Pennsylvania. 
During his stay in England he made many friends and won 
popularity among men of every rank. When he went to 
Paris (in 1776) to intercede in behalf of the revolting colonies 
he was regarded as a champion of the liberty for which the 
French themselves were yearning and he was received with 

an enthusiasm that 
seemed to know no 
bounds. But al- 
though Franklin 
was able to win 
over the French 
])eople " heart and 
soul " to his cause, 
the French gov - 
ernment remained 
timid and inac- 
tive. When the 
news of Saratoga 
came, however, the 
French quickly ac- 
knowledged the in- 
dependence of the 
United States and made (February 6, 1778) a treaty of 
friendship and alliance with the new nation. 

This treaty, recognizing the United States of North 
America as an independent power, stipulated that if Eng- 
land should declare war upon France, the United States and 
France should throw their combined forces against England, 
and that neither of the contracting parties should conclude 
a peace without the assent of the other. The treaty also 
gave to the vessels of each power large privileges in the 
ports of the other. 

When England heard of the treaty, her indignation rose 




Franklin and his grandsons in Paris. 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 191 

hiffh and within a few months she was at war with France. Efforts 

. . . , for 

Spam also allied herself with France agamst England and concuia- 

began to supply the American Patriots with money. So Eng- 
land now had to fight against the combined forces of the 
United States, France, and Spain. The treaty caused Eng- 
land to make one more efifort for conciliation. In a few days 
after the signing of the treaty, bills were hurried through 
Parliament removing the tax on tea, repealing the Boston 
port bill, restoring to Massachusetts its former government, 
and proclaiming full and general pardon to all Americans 
who had joined in the revolt against England. Parliament also 
provided that a board of Commissioners should be sent to 
America to negotiate a compromise, the Commissioners being 
vested with authority to grant the most liberal terms. " Small 
or great, ceremonial or essential, every point in dispute between 
the British cabinet and the Continental Congress, was sur- 
rendered, without ambiguity and without reserve." The in- 
structions to the Commissioners showed plainly enough that 
England no longer had hopes of really governing her colonies. 
All she hoped for was that she might still hold America as 
some kind of dependency, even if it was held by an extremely 
tenuous thread. But the time for conciliation had passed. 
The victory at Saratoga and the French alliance had done 
their work. When the Commissioners reached Philadelphia 
in June, Congress, in terms " curt, conclusive, and almost de- 
fiant," refused to negotiate with them. 

After the signing of the treaty of alliance, France promptly Mon- 
sent to America a strong land and naval force. ^ When the 
British in Philadelphia heard that a French fleet was cross- 

1 Naval Warfare. During the Revolution the Americans had no regular navy. 
Such warfare as they waged on the sea was carried on by private persons. Con- 
gress issued letters of marque which gave captains authority to make war upon 
English vessels. The most famous of these privateers was John Paul Jones, who, 
with a squadron of three ships harried the coast of England and Scotland. In 
1779 Jones's flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, fought a desperate battle with the 
British frigate Serapis, the two ships being lashed together and the struggle con- 
tinuing until the decks of both vessels ran with blood and until the ships caught 
fire. In the end the Serapis surrendered. The victory caused great rejoicing in 
America and made Jones a hero. 



192 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



ing the Atlantic, they prepared to withdraw from the city, 
for they feared they would soon be blockaded. In June, Sir 

TTenry Clinton, who had succeeded 
ll(nve in command, received orders 
to leave Philadelphia and lead his 
troops to New York. But Clinton 
was not allowed to make the jour- 
ney in peace. At Monmouth, in 
New Jersey, he was attacked 
(June 28, 1778) by Washington 
and was saved from defeat only by 
the strange, and perhaps treason- 
able conduct of General Charles 
Lee, who ordered the Americans 
to retreat at a moment when vic- 
tory was within their grasp. Washington was able to check 
the retreat of his soldiers, but Clinton succeeded in reach- 
ing New York. After the battle of Monmouth, Washing- 
ton moved his army up the Hudson and encamped at White 
Plains where he remained for nearly three years, watching 
Clinton and holding him in check. Thus after a campaign of 
nearly two years in the North, the British had succeeded only 
in capturing and holding the city of New York. 




John Paul Jones. 



In 

Georgia 

and 

South 

Oaro- 

lina 



65. THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. 

After so much failure at the North, the British in 1778 
decided to begin anew their efforts to conquer the South. 
Accordingly, in December 1778, they moved against Savan- 
nah and compelled it to surrender. A year later they moved 
against Charleston, and early in 1780 that city also surren- 
dered. Georgia and Sof^th Carolina were now in the hands 
of the British. The conquerors, however, did not have a 
bed of roses, for in South Carolina bands of roving Patriots 
conducted a guerrilla \varfare against the British, dashing 
down a mountainside or out from a dense wood, striking 
a blow whenever a blow could be struck, and then disap- 
pearing as suddenly as they had appeared. Chief among the 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 193 

leaders of these bands were Francis Marion and Thomas 
Sumter. 

General Gates, who had been in command at Saratoga, was British 

. . Victories 

placed at the head of the American troops m the South. The in the 
^ South 

commander of the British troops of the South was General 
Cornwallis, the most capable and dangerous opponent whom 
the Americans had to face. In August 1780, the two armies 
met at Camden, and fought a battle which was most dis- 
astrous to the Americans. Gates himself was swept ofif the 
field and was not again heard from for several days. A 
Maryland regiment under De Kalb fought with prodigious 
valor, but it could not check the advance of the British. 
The rout of the army was complete and its loss was terrible; 
besides a heavy loss of men, it lost all its artillery, all its 
baggage and supplies, and nearly all its muskets and am- 
munition. 

The disheartening- defeat at Camden was quickly followed The 

., ,., . tAi o Treason of 

by an mcident even more disheartenmg. in September 1700, Amoid 
Benedict Arnold turned traitor to the American cause. After 
having rendered excellent service at Saratoga, Arnold had 
been given the command of the American forces at Phila- 
delphia and while there he had been reprimanded mildly 
by Washington for misconduct as an officer. He still re- 
tained the confidence of Washington, however, and was ap- 
pointed commander of West Point on the Hudson. Here 
he entered into a plan to betray his post to the British but 
through good luck the plan failed. Major Andre, the go- 
between in the plot, was captured and in his boot were the 
incriminating documents written by Arnold himself. Andre 
was hanged as a spy, but Arnold escaped within the Brit- 
ish lines. The traitor received as the price of his dishonor 
£6,000 in gold and a general's commission in the British 
army. 

After the battle of Camden, the Southern States were King's 
wholly in the hands of the British. The only American troops and 
south of New Jersey were the scattered remnants of Gates's 
army. In this crisis, Congress turned to Washington and 



194 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



requested him to select a new commander for the Southern 
forces. Washington named Nathanael Greene, of Rhode 




The Revolutionary War as fought in the South. 

Island, a man whose soldierly qualities almost equaled those 
of the commander-in-chief himself. Greene took command 
of the army at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 



195 



1780, and soon the fortunes of the Americans began to im- 
prove. Some weeks before Greene assumed command, the 
frontiersmen ^ of Watauga (p. 147) won a remarkable victory 
(October 7, 1780) over the British at King's Mountain. In 
a short time the Battle of Cowpens followed and the British 
suffered (January 17, 1781) another disastrous defeat. 




Battle of King's Mountain. Ferguson's death charge. 



Greene was now upon the scene and in active command of 
the forces in the South. He won no battles himself, but 
his operations were so successful that he soon took from the 

1 Border Warfare. — The Revolution spread to the western frontier, where the 
Indians generally took the side of the EnglisI"' In the summer of 1778 the valley 
of Wyoming in Pennsylvania was swept by^ a company of Indians and Tories, 
who left behind them an awful scene of murder and devastation. Cherry Valley in 
central New York suffered at the hands of these marauders in much the same 
way. General Sullivan was sent against the Tories and their Indian allies and 
at Newton, on the site of the present city of Elmira, he met them in battle and 
punished them severely. 

The most important event connected with the border warfare of the Revolution 
was the capture of the Illinois country — the Northwest Territory (p. 170)— by 
General Rogers Clark. Acting in the name of Virginia, this dashing officer, with 
about 150 men, floated down the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland, where he 
struck northwest across marshes, captured Kaskaskia and Vincennes and took 
possession of the whole region north of Ohio. Only Detroit was left in the hands 
of the British. This conquest gave the United States a claim to the Northwest 
which was of the utmost importance when the question of boundaries was settled 
at the close of the war. 



town 



196 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

British all the territory they had won in Georgia and the 
Carolinas. 
York- Having failed to hold the Carolinas, Cornwallis marched his 

troops into Virginia, where there was already a British force 
under Benedict Arnold. Lafayette was on the ground to meet 
Cornwallis, and soon the brilliant young Frenchman forced 
the British general, who had succeeded in making a junction 
with Arnold's troops, into an indefensible position at York- 
town on the peninsula formed by the York and James Rivers. 
Washington now saw his chance to deliver a decisive blow. 
He had been planning to attack New York and drive the 




Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. 

British from their only lodging-place in the North, but he 
abandoned this plan and hurried south with his army, cover- 
ing a distance of three hundred miles in eleven days. When 
he reached Yorktown, he found that a French fleet under 
Admiral Count de Grasse had arrived in the nick of time and 
was guarding the entrance to the Chesapeake. The French 
and American forces, outnumbering the pjritish two to one, 
closed in on Cornwallis by land, and the guns of the French 
fleet made it impossible for him to escape by water. There 
was nothing for him to do but surrender. So, on the seven- 
teenth of October 1781, he asked for a cessation of hostili- 
ties, and two days later made a formal surrender of his 
army. After this there were no more important military 
movements ; the War of the Revolution was over. 



'4 



THE STRUGGLE AND THE VICTORY 197 

66. THE TREATY OF PEACE OF 1783. 
The news of the surrender of Cornwallis struck Lord Why 

England 

North, England's prime minister, like a bullet in the breast, sought 
George III, however, heard the news with composure and 
was as determined as ever that the war should go on. But 
it was no longer for the interest of England to continue the 
war against her colonies. She was carrying on war with 
the French, with the Spaniards, and with the Dutch, as well 
s with the Americans ; her power was threatened in India ; 
J was having trouble with Ireland, and in all parts of the 
v/orld she was meeting with reverses. Therefore, in Feb- 
•;uary 1782, Parliament authorized the King to conclude a 
peace with the United States ; wherefore, negotiations were 
opened v;ith the American peace commissioners (Benjamin 
Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams). Congress instructed 
the commissioners to be guided by the wishes of France, but 
they broke away from their instructions and dealt directly 
with England. A provisional treaty was concluded at Paris 
in November 1782. By the terms of this treaty, hostilities Terms 
in America were to cease at once ; the British army and Treaty 
fleet were to be withdrawn from the territory of the United 
States ; the independence of the United States was fully 
acknowledged; the boundaries of the new nation were to 
be the southern border of Canada on the north, the Missis- 
sippi river on the west, and Florida on the south ; Florida was 
to be given back to Spain ; Americans were given the right to 
Ish on the coast of Newfoundland; the Mississippi River was 
• be open to British as well as to American vessels; Congress 
as to request the several States to desist from persecuting 
le Loyalists and to give them the opportunity to recover the 
property which had been confiscated from them. The pro- 
^ ''^ional treaty was signed by the contracting parties on the 
d of September 1783, and was thus made definitive. It 
'vas ratified by the American Congress on the 14th of Janu- 
y 1784. The treaty was received by the Americans with 
eat enthusiasm. They had good reason to rejoice, for the 



198 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

commissioners by tact and firmness had secured terms which 
were entirely favorable to the United States. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Lecky's account of the battles of Trenton and Princeton: Halsey 
III, 149-154. 

2. "The Game is Pretty Near up": Hart II, 559-562. 

3. The campaigns of Burgoyne and Howe: Van Tyne, 157-174. 

4. French aid and French alliance: Van Tyne, 203-226. 

5. Yorktown and the surrender of Cornwallis: Hitchcock, 145- 
150. 

6. Give an account of the surrender of Yorktown following the ac- 
count given by Cornwallis himself: Halsey III, 196-199. 

7. George Rogers Clark's own account of the capture of Vincennes: 
Halsey III, 188-195. 

8. Give an account of Arnold's treason following Lecky : Halsey 
III, 172-181. 

9. The end of the Revolution : McLaughlin, 3-19. 

10. The Treaty of Paris: McLaughlin, 18-34; Hart II, 619-625. 

11. Dates for the chronological table: 1777, 1778, 1781. 

12. Give a full account of the capture of the Serapis. Relate the 
story of "Moll Pitcher." Who were the captors of Major Andre? 
Tell the story of Nathan Hale. Why did not Howe help Burgoyne? 
Read in the class Lecky's estimate of the services of Washington in 
the Revolution : Halsey III, 200-203. Summarize the battles of the 
Revolution giving places and dates. How many battles were won by 
the English? How many by the Americans? 

13. Special Reading. C. V. Greene, l^Iie War of the Revolution. 
Avery, History of the United States, Vol VI. 



XIX 

A CRITICAL PERIOD (1783-1789) 

When the Americans broke away from England they were at once 
brought face to face with the most difficuh problems of government. 
After independence was actually achieved these problems became so 
serious and the situation became so threatening, that the years between 
1783 and 1789 have been called the critical period of our history. What 
were the leading events of this period? What problems of govern- 
ment arose and what dangers threatened America during these critical 
years? 

67. STATE CONSTITUTIONS AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. 

Even before independence was declared, the colonies began The 
^ . ' ° state 

to prepare for a new order of thnis^s, for no sooner were consti- 

• 1 / \ i 1 tutions 

the old colonial governments overthrown (p. 174) than the 
new State governments were organized to take their place. 
As the basic or fundamental law of each new State, there 
was adopted a written constitution which took the place of 
the colonial charter (p. 112). Rhode Island and Connecti- 
cut did not frame new constitutions ; they simply substituted 
the word " people " for King in their charters and adopted 
them as their constitutions. All the States adopted the first 
constitutions in the name of the people although not all the 
States submitted them directly to the people for approval. 
Still, the first constitutions were all supposed to be declar- 
ative of the popular will. " Thirteen governments," said John 
Adams, " thus founded on the natural authority of the people 
alone without the pretense of a miracle or mystery, are a 
great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind," 

The form of government prescribed by the constitution state 
of a State was in every case a representative democracy, ments^" 
although the suffrage was usually limited by property qualifi- 

199 



200 ADVAI^CED AMERICAN HISTORY 

cations, or by religious tests. In no State did the electorate 
include the whole body of adult males. Three great depart- 
ments of government were established in each of the new 
States, the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Each 
department was supposed to be quite independent of the 
other two. In all of the States except Pennsylvania and 
Georgia the legislature consisted of two branches, the upper 
house being called the senate and the lower house — in most 
of the States — the house of representatives. At the head 
of the executive department was a governor, elected in some 
of the States by the legislature and in others by the direct 
vote of the people. As the governor had been an unpopular 
officer in colonial times, the State constitutions were chary 
in bestowing power upon him. In some of the States he 
was allowed to hold office for only one year, on the ground 
that a longer term was inimical to liberty. " Where annual 
elections end," said Samuel Adams, " tyranny begins." In 
only two States was the Governor given the power of the 
veto. In every State there was a system of courts, the judges 
of which were either appointed by the governor or chosen 
by the legislature. In no State were the judges elected by 
the people. Such was the organization of the State which was 
erected upon the colonial foundation. 
The The powers of the new State were almost precisely those 

of'th^e^^ of the old colony. \\'hat were these powers? Broadly speak- 
ing, the State regulated most of the affairs of daily life: it 
prescribed the legal relations that were to exist between hus- 
band and wife; between parent and child; between master 
and servant ; it regulated buying and selling, debt and credit, 
partnership and contracts, wills and inheritances ; it regulated 
corporations, public and private ; it controlled the local govern- 
ments — county and city and town ; it maintained schools, 
and provided for a system of police ; it administered justice and 
defined and punished crimes ; it determined the civil rights 
of its citizens ; it prescribed qualifications for voters and it 
provided for the holding of elections. Such powers as these 
were exercised by the States from the moment of their separa- 



A CRITICAL PERIOD 201 

tion from England and liavc been exercised by them until 
the present time. 

68. THE CONFEDERATION (1781-1789.) 

At the very time that the State governments were in process ^he^^^^ 
of making, a central government, a government for the entire of 

o' ° ' o Confed- 

United States, was also coming into being. As soon as m- eration 
dependence was declared, a movement to organize a central 
government with definite powers was begun, and by November 
1777, the Continental Congress had agreed to the Articles 
of Confederation which provided for a new political union 
which was to be known as the " United States of America." 
But the Articles had to be ratified by the States, and the 
States were slow to give their consent. The delay was due 
mainly to a dispute as to the ownership of the western terri- J^^i^uns 
tory. By virtue of their sea-to-sea charters, and for other ^°l^- 
reasons, seven States claimed land lying west of the Alle- Terri- 

' y o tory 

ghanies, while six States — New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland — could 
make no such claim. But inasmuch as the western territory, 
if it was won at all, would be won by united action, the States 
with no claims were unwilling that the other States should 
have all the fruits of the victory. So, for a time the non- 
claimant States were reluctant to agree to the Articles of 
Confederation unless satisfactory arrangements could be made 
in regard to the western lands. By May 1779, however, all 
the States had agreed to the Articles . excepting Maryland. 
This State withheld ratification until the States laying claim 
to lands in the Northwest Territory (p. 170) should sur- 
render their claims to the Confederation. Maryland after 
a long contention at last gained her point; Virginia, New 
York, and Massachusetts promised to cede their claims to 
the western lands. Accordingly, on the first of March 1781, 
Maryland agreed to the Articles. On the following day the 
old Continental Congress assembled as the Congress of the 
Confederation, and began to govern under the Articles. 

The Union provided by the Articles was in its nature a 



202 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Organi- 
zation 
of the 
Confed- 
•fration 



Powers 
of the 
Confed- 
eration 



mere alliance : each State was to retain its " sovereignty, 
freedom, and independence." The organ of authority of the 
new nation was a Congress composed of delegates from the 
several States, just as the already existing Continental Con- 
gress was composed. A State, under the Articles, could not 
send less than two delegates, nor more than seven, but what- 
ever might be the number of its delegates, a State had but 
one vote, which was determined by a majority of the dele- 
gates present. The voting, therefore, was by States, one 
State in the Congress being as powerful as another. The 
great State of Virginia, for example, whose domain reached 
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, had no more power than 
little Rhode Island. To carry any important measure in the 
Congress required the votes of nine States. An amendment 
to the Articles had to be agreed to first by the Congress and 
then by the legislatures of all the States. Such was the or- 
ganization of the government of the Ignited States as provided 
in the Articles of Confederation. 

The powers of the new government were all vested in 
Congress. That body was given power: 

1. To determine questions of peace and war. 

2. To enter into treaties and alliances. 

3. To send and receive ambassadors. 

4. To make rules governing captures on land and water. 

5. To decide, upon appeal, disputes between the States 

concerning boundaries. 

6. To determine the value of current coin. 

7. To manage Indian afifairs. 

8. To establish and regulate post-offices. 

9. To appoint naval officers and the higher grades of 

army officers. 

The above powers, it will be observed, are for the most 
part the identical powers which we saw the Continental Con- 
gress exercising as early as 1775 (p. 177). The States, while 
bestowing these powers upon the government of the United 
States, expressly denied these powers to themselves, and 



A CRITICAL PERIOD 203 

pledged themselves to abide by the decisions of the Congress 
in all matters whidi came within the range of its rightful 
authority. 

69. THE EVIL DAYS OF THE CONFEDERATION. 

Government under the Articles of Confederation continued The 
for eight years (1781-1789), As long as the war with Eng- ists 
land lasted, the Articles served a useful purpose, but after 
the war was over they were quickly found to be worthless 
in almost every respect. Especially was the Confederation 
weak in regard to foreign matters. It could make treaties 
with foreign nations, but it lacked the power to carry the 
treaties into effect. Its weakness as to treaty obligations was 
seen in the case of the Loyalists. Under the terms of the 
treaty of 1783 the Loyalists were to be treated fairly and 
Congress urged the States to treat them fairly, but the recom- 
mendations of Congress were received with contempt, and 
the Loyalists were treated almost as badly after the signing 
of the treaty as they had been during the war (p. 175). In 
some States they were subjected to mob violence; in some 
they were ordered to leave the country. And they did leave 
in great numbers, so bitter was the persecution which was 
directed against them. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 
Loyalists left the LTnited States between 1783 and 1786. 

When the countries of Europe saw the w^eakness of the Un- 
Confederation they hesitated to make treaties with the United Conduct 
States. England (in 1785) refused outright to make a com- England 
mercial treaty with us on the ground that Congress had no Spain 
power to regulate commerce and hence could not enforce the 
terms of a commercial treaty, if it made one. Instead of be- 
ing our friend in commercial matters, England chose to be 
our enemy. She issued an order excluding American vessels 
from trade with the British West Indies, — a hard blow to 
our commerce. Also, in disregard of the treaty of 1783 
she retained possession of the frontier forts — Oswego, Erie, 
Mackinac, and Detroit. Spain, too, took advantage of the 
weakness of the confederation. In 1784 the Spanish Gov- 



204 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Lack 
of the 
Taxing 
Power 



The 

New- 
burgh 
Addresses 



eninicnt informed Congress that England had no right to 
grant to the ^Americans the free navigation of the Mississippi 
and gave warning that any American vessels attempting to 
use that river would be exposed to confiscation. So at the 
very outset the United States was Ijrought face to face with 
difficult foreign questions, wdiich she was unable to deal with 
firmly because of the weakness of her government. 

But if foreign matters under the Confederation were bad, 
domestic matters were even worse. Especially were the na- 
tional finances in a sorry condition. At the close of the war 
money was needed to pay the troops who had fought the 
battles of the Revolution, to pay the expenses of the Con- 
federation, and to pay its debts. But Congress had no money, 
and the Articles did not give it power to raise a revenue by 
taxation. Congress could ask a State for its share of the 
public expense, but it could not compel a State to contribute 
a penny. Congress had power to borrow money and did bor- 
row in considerable sums, but by 1783 its credit was ex- 
hausted. It could not hope to go on borrowing when it 
had no efifective means of making a repayment. " To in- 
crease our debts," said Robert Morris, the Superintendent 
of Finance, " while the prospect of paying them diminishes, 
does not consort with my ideas of integrity." 

The financial straits of Congress soon caused the country 
to face a situation of great danger. In 1783 the soldiers 
encamped at New^burgh grew restive and demanded their 
pay. " We have borne," they said, in a petition which they 
sent to Congress, " we have borne all that men can bear — 
our property is expended, our private resources are at an 
end, and our friends are wearied out and disgusted with our 
incessant applications." The address was menacing in its 
tone and it alarmed thoughtful men who feared that if the 
soldiers should disperse without their pay they would be 
hostile to Congress and their hostility would lead to the 
complete dissolution of the Confederation. The address of 
the soldiers to Congress was followed by an anonymous ad- 
dress which was circulated among the troops with the evident 



A CRITICAL PERIOD 



205 



purpose of exciting their resentment. " Can you then," said 
this address, " consent to be the only sufferers by the Revo- 
lution, and retiring from the field grow old in poverty, 
wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade 
through the vile mire of despondency, and owe the miserable 
remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent 
in h.onor? If you can, — GO — and carry with you the jest 
of Tories and the scorn of Whigs, the ridicule, and what 
is worse, the jnty of the world. Go, starve, and be forgot- 
ten." The impending danger of a general mutiny v^as averted 
by Washington, who allayed the fears of the soldiers and 
induced them to - - - -^ 

entrust their af- 
fairs to him. He 
laid their case be- 
fore Congress and 
that body granted 
such relief as it 
could, but the re- 
lief consisted chief- 
ly of promises to 
pay. Toward the 
end of the year 
1783 the army was 
disbanded. " The 
veterans went home 
without a settlement of their accounts or a penny in their 
pockets. In little groups of four or five they trudged along, 
living in great part upon farm-house hospitality. At his jour- 
ney's end, the veteran hung his memorial musket over the 
chimney-piece and turned again to the furrows and the cat- 
tle ; years of suffering behind, years of suffering before." 
(Avery.) 




Cupr. by Und. 

Washington's Headquarters at 
Newburgh, N. Y. 



1 & Underwood, N. Y. 



Commercial affairs under the Confederation were in a state Con- 
fusion 

Each State had its own custom- in com- 
mercial 



of the greatest confusion 

house and its own tariff, and could levy duties not only on Affairs 

goods coming from foreign countries but also upon goods 



2o6 



ADVAxNCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Con- 
fusion 
in Mone- 
tary 
Affairs 



coming from a sister State. In the Southern States the im- 
port duties were imposed chiefly with the view of raising 
revenue, while in the Middle and New England States they 
were imposed with the view of protecting home industries 
as well as raising revenue. The duties varied widely in the 
different States, while in some States goods were admitted 
free of duty. Of course foreign goods sought the port where 
the duties were the lowest. When fixing the duties a State 
was often influenced by motives of jealousy or retaliation, or 
by the hope of winning trade away from a neighbor. Alas- 
sachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island by their heavy 
duties virtually closed their ports upon the British trade. 
Connecticut thereupon threw her ports wide open to British 
shipping and laid duties upon imports from Massachusetts, 
thus discriminating against a neighbor in favor of a foreign 
country. New York levied taxes upon goods from Connecti- 
cut, while New Jersey was compared to a cask tapped at 
both ends because it paid duties both to New York and Penn- 
sylvania. Congress several times asked the States for power 
to remedy some of the evils connected with commerce, but 
the power was not given. 

The monetary system during the period of the Confedera- 
tion was in as much confusion as was the commercial system. 
Each State could issue money in its own way and there 
were so many different kinds of money in circulation that 
to calculate the value of one piece was a serious mathe- 
matical problem. " There were doubloons, pistoles, gold Jo- 
hannes, English and French crowns, English guineas and 
Spanish dollars. ... In such a state of disorder , . . and 
depreciation was the currency of the time, and so much did 
terms differ from State to State, that the dollar was worth 
six shillings in New England and Virginia, eight shillings in 
New York and North Carolina, seven and sixpence in Penn- 
sylvania, five shillings in Georgia, and thirty-two shillings 
sixpence in South Carolina."^ In 1785 through the efforts 



1 A. C. McLaughlin, ' The Confederation," p. 158. 



A CRITICAL PERIOD 207 

of Thomas Jefferson and Gouverneur Morris a simplified 
monetary system was worked out and submitted to Congress, 
and the following year an act was passed providing for a 
national currency based on the decimal system, beginning with 
the mill as the lowest unit of value. 

But worse than the confusion of the currency was its scarcity 
scarcity. In 1785 there was not enough money in the United Money 
States for the transaction of the ordinary business of daily 
life. In some of the States the produce of the farmers rotted 
in the barns because it could not be sold. When farmers 
wanted clothing for their families " they v/ere compelled to 
run from village to village to find a cobbler who would 
take wheat for shoes or a tailor who would give cloth for 
pumpkins." Congress had power to coin money but it had 
no funds with which to erect a mint or to buy the bullion. 
It could issue paper money, but it would have been folly 
to do so for nobody would have taken it. People remembered 
too well how the paper money of the Continental Congress 
(p. 177) became at last so valueless that, as the saying went, 
it required a wagon-load of the money to purchase a wagon- 
load of provisions. 

Still, the cry for more money was so loud and persistent Paper 
that in 1785 and 1786 seven States authorized issues of paper 
money. In Rhode Island where an issue was made, the 
legislature decreed that merchants refusing to accept the money 
at its face value should be fined and should lose their rights 
as freemen. Everywhere the paper money remedy ended in 
failure. The bills of credit, as the scrip was called, always 
depreciated in value and in some cases fell to a point where 
it was utterly worthless. Neither Congress nor the States 
could perform successfully the experiment of transmuting 
paper into silver and gold. 

Where money was so scarce and debts so pressing there Popular 
was bound to be discontent among the people. In Massa- ing"^" 
chusetts the discontent showed itself in the form of violence. 
In Northampton and at Great Barrington mobs of armed 
men intimidated the courts and even prevented them from 



208 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



holding their regular sessions. The discontent finally took 
the form of open rebellion against government. Daniel 
Shays, who had been a captain in the continental army, as- 
sembled a force of several hundred men (in 1786) and for 
six months defied the authority of the State of Massachusetts. 
Shays's rebellion was put down, but not before it was made 
plain that the country was in an extremely unhealthy condition. 
An incident of the rebellion showed how insignificant was the 



c^ 



wX^^c<.^^^e,^ 

















4^^2^>^t^^^' 



^^^P-'^:'-^^^, 



Facsimile of a portion of Washing-ton's resignation as Commander 

of the Army. 

power of the Confederation : when it was proposed in the 
legislature of Massachusetts to call upon Congress for help in 
putting down the rebellion, the measure was defeated, one of 
the arguments used to defeat it being that it was incompatible 
with the dignity of Massachusetts to allow United States troops 
to set foot upon her soil ! 



Provi- 
sions of 
the Ordi- 
nance of 
1787 



70. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 

During the troublesome times just described, the Congress 
of the Confederation was engaged in a memorable work of 
legislation ; it was planning a government for the Northwest 
Territory. By 1786 the Confederation had gained full title to 



A CRITICAL PERIOD 205 

all this territory except the Western Reserve, a strip which ex 
tended along the shore of Lake Erie, and which was still 
claimed by Connecticut. In 1787 in response to the needs of 
a land-company which was projecting a settlement at the con- 
fluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, Congress passed 
an ordinance setting forth the manner in which new communi- 
ties in the Northwest should be governed. The Ordinance of 
1787 provided ( i ) that not less than three nor more than five 
States should be formed out of the Northwest Territory; (2) 
that each State should have a republican form of government ; 
(3) that there should be no slavery; (4) that religious liberty 
should be guaranteed; (5) that education should be encour- 
aged; (6) that the Indians should be justly treated; (7) that 
when one of the political communities should have 60,000 in- 
habitants, it should be admitted into the Union with all the 
rights of a State- (8) that until a community should be large 
enough for statehood, it should be governed as a Territory. 
While under the territorial form of government the community 
was to be governed in part by Congress and in part by the 
people of the Territory. 

The Ordinance of 1787, the last law to be passed by the old ^g^J^g^ 
Congress of the Confederation, was reenacted at an early date q^^^ 
by the Congress organized under the Constitution. So far- ^^^'^^ 
reaching were the effects of this statute upon the course of ^"^^^ 
American history that it is regarded by many as being a law 
almost as important as the Constitution itself. The most sig- 
nificant feature ot the Ordinance was the clause providing the 
lorm of government that should prevail in the Northwest Ter- 
ritory. Here was foreshadowed the policy that resulted in giv- 
ing to new communities in the W^est the precious boon of self- 
government. The Territories while in their infancy were to 
be treated as colonial dependencies, but so soon as they were 
large enough and strong enough to govern themselves they 
were to be clothed with all the powers and rights possessed 
by the original States. Another very significant feature of the 
Ordinance was the clause prohibiting slavery in the Northwest 
Territory, It is true that slavery would very probably have 



210 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

been excluded from this region by other causes, by an un- 
favorable climate and by settlers desiring a system of free 
labor, but it is also true — as will be seen hereafter (p. 283) — 
that whenever efforts w^ere made to introduce slavery into the 
country northwest of the Ohio the Ordinance always proved the 
most troublesome of barriers to the introduction. " It im- 
pressed," said Rhodes, " on the soil itself, while yet a wilder- 
ness, an incapacity to sustain any others than freemen." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The Stale Legislature: Forman, 162-168. 

2. The State Executive: Forman, 170-175. 

3. The State Judiciary: Forman, 177-182. 

4. What problems of organization confronted American statesmen 
after the Revolution? McLaughlin, 35-52. 

5. Describe the commercial and financial conditions which prevailed 
in the United States during the period of the Confederation : Mc- 
Laughlin, 71-88; also McMaster I, 204-207. 

6. Monetary conditions during the critical period: McMaster I, 
189-197, 400, 404. 

7. Paper money (1783-1789): McMaster I, 281-294; Dewey, 36-44. 

8. Give a full account of Shays's Rebellion; McMaster I, 310-325. 

9. The navigation of the Mississippi River: McMaster I, 371-383. 
ID. Why England would not make a treaty with us (1785) : Hart 

III, 171-177. 

11. The failure of the Confederation: Hart III, 154-158. 

12. Describe the meeting of John Adams with George III : Halsey 

IV, 25-30. 

13. The Northwest Ordinance (17S7) : Hart III, 154-158. 

14. A date for the chronological table: 1787. 

15. Special Reading. John Fiske, The Critical Period of American 
History, 1783-1789. Bancroft, History of the Formation of the Con- 
stitution of the United Sfates. Richard Hildreth, History of the United 
States. Vol. IV. H. E. Van Hoist, The Constitutional and Political 
History of the United States, Vol. I, chapters i and ii. 



XX 

FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 

The conditions described in the last chapter caused thoughtful men 
to see that if the powers of the central government were not increased 
the Union would fall to pieces. So the statesmen of the time rallied 
their forces and secured for the United States a new Constitution, the 
one which we have to-day. What led to the formation of the new Con- 
stitution? What kind of a government did the new Constitution estab- 
lish? What was the organization of that government and what were 
its powers? 

71. CENTRIFUGAL AND CENTRIPETAL FORCES. 

When statesmen in 1786 and 1787 took up the task of in- The 

Forces 
creasing the powers of the central government, strong forces of pis- 
were operating to keep the States apart and prevent the forma- 
tion of a more perfect union. Geographical conditions were 
unfavorable to union. Long distances and imperfect means 
of communication made it impossible for the people of one 
State to know much of the lives and the thoughts of the peo- 
ple of another. Men seldom passed beyond the boundaries 
of the State in which they were born. " Of the affairs of 
Georgia," wrote James Madison, of Virginia, in 1786, " I 
know as little as of those of Kamchatka." Then, too, the in- 
terests of one section of the country were opposed to the 
interests of another section. The North had manufacturing 
interests which it desired to protect and augment by imposing 
duties upon importations. The South, on the other hand, 
having no factories, welcomed the importation of foreign 
goods free of customs duties. Since this was so, how could 
a central government enact a customs law which would be 
equally acceptable to all the ports along the Atlantic coast? 
But the thing that operated most powerfully against union 

211 



212 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

was the fact that the people ahnost everywhere feared the 
power of a central government. In 1787 the people of the 
United States were such lovers of liberty, were so enamored 
of the rights of the individual, that they were loath to bestow 
power upon any government, whether local, State, or national. 
They were inclined to distrust government. Indeed, many peo- 
ple cherished an attitude of mind that was positively hostile to 
government. Jefferson, the greatest of the popular leaders, 
said in 1787: " I hold that a little rebellion now and then is 
a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms 
in the physical ... it is a medicine necessary for the sound 
health of government." INIen who entertained such extreme 
individualistic notions — and they were probably in the ma- 
jority — believed that to give the United States a strong cen- 
tral government would but set up an instrument of tyranny 
and oppression. 
The But there were centripetal as well as centrifugal forces at 

of work. First, the States were alike in their social and politi- 

Union _ , . . , r i • 

cal structure and were fitted for union by reason of their com- 
mon origin and the similarity of their laws, manners, and 
customs. Second, there was the great national domain beyond 
the mountains, the Northwest Territory. This belonged to the 
United States, and, if the States would only hold together, 
the countless acres of this vast heritage would be sold and 
the money would be turned into the treasury of the United 
States for the common benefit. But if the Union should be 
dissolved, most of the States would be shut out of all interest 
and claim in the western lands. So the possession of the 
Northwest Territory was a powerful factor in holding the 
Union together. Lastly, the very dangers of disunion were 
by 1786 drawing the States together. Shays's Rebellion and 
kindred acts of lawlessness opened men's eyes to the actual 
condition of affairs and caused them to see the evils of dis- 
union in their true light. Men saw that if the central gov- 
ernment should pass completely out of existence and each 
State should become an independent power, there would be 
scattered along the coast thirteen weak, quarrelsome, and bcl- 



FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 213 

ligerent little nations instead of one strong one. In such a 
condition of disunion the country would be the easy prey of 
the invader. State would quarrel with State, and all the so- 
cial, moral, and intellectual advantages which flow from union 
would be lost. Such dangers were really impending in 1786, 
and they alarmed men and caused them to seek safety in union. 

72. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787. 
Efforts to amend and strengthen the Articles of Confedera- TheCaU 

* . . . lor a 

tion began to be made almost immediately after their adoption conven- 

..." tion 

m 1 78 1, and contmued to be made from time to time in the 
years following, but every effort of the kind met with fail- 
ure. To amend the Articles required the consent of every 
State, and this complete unanimity could in no case be se- 
cured. By 1786 statesmen like Washington, Madison, and 
Alexander Hamilton were working hard in behalf of a stronger 
central government, and through their influence Congress was 
prevailed upon to call for a Convention to meet at Philadel- 
phia ^ in May 1787, for the sole and express purpose of re- 
vising the Articles of Confederation and to report such alter- 
ations as should render the federal constitution adequate to 
the exigencies of government, and the preservation of the 
union." All the States responded to the call excepting Rhode 
Island. The men sent to the Convention were the ablest 
in America, and some of them were profound students 
of government. The leaders in carrying forward the work 
of the Convention were George Washington, James Madison, 
Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney, Edmund Randolph, Rufus King, James Wilson, 
William Paterson, and William Johnson. 

Although the Convention was called for the sole purpose Federal 
of revising the Articles of Confederation, it was soon seen ment 
that a mere revision would be patchwork and would bring 

1 In 1785 the States were invited to appoint commissioners to meet at Annapolis 
for the discussion of subjects relating to the regulation of inter-state commerce. 
Five States sent representatives to this meeting, which was considered too small 
for the transaction of business. At this Annapolis meeting, however, it was 
recommended that a convention of all the States be held at Philadelphia. 



214 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

no relief to the country. So it was decided to strike out boldly 
and plan an entirely new government that would have power 
to accomplish the purposes for which it was established. 
The new Government was to be a federal government : it was 
to be sovereign in respect to matters which concerned the 
States taken collectively, while each separate State was to 
retain unimpaired its sovereignty in respect to those matters 
which concerned only itself. The power of this new federal 
government was to be real : it was to act independently of the 
States, and was not to be restrained by them ; it was to have 
its own organization, its own laws, and its own officers ; and 
in the execution of its laws it was to deal with individuals 
and not with States. Under the Articles of Confederation 
the central government (Congress) could deal only with the 
States, and over a State it could exert no real power. If 
Congress in 1785 had sent its officers to Massachusetts to com- 
pel that State to do something it did not wish to do, the offi- 
cers of Congress would have been as fiercely resisted as the 
officers of George III were resisted ten years before. But 
the power of the new federal government was not to clash 
with the power of a State ; it was to reach the individual di- 
rectly, make laws for him, take money out of his pocket for 
taxes, try him in federal courts, and punish him if he vio- 
lated federal laws. The new government was to rest upon 
the power of the people (1)\ and w^as to be proclaimed as 
having been established by them. 
The A new scheme of organization was regarded as necessary 

Organi- - , . . , , * • , , , 

zation tor the organization under the Articles was a mere shadow. 

greas A model for the organization of the new federal government 

was seen in the existing State governments (p. 218), and it 
was quickly determined by the Convention that the proposed 
federal government should consist of a legislative, an execu- 
tive, and a judicial department. The legislative department 
was to be a Congress consisting of a Senate and a House 

1 The numbers which hereafter occur in heavy-faced type refer to passages 
in the Constitution of the United States (Appendix A) which are distinguished 
by corresponding numbers on the margin. 



FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 215 

of Representatives (2). But how were the States to 
be represented in Congress? This question gave the Con- 
vention a vast amount of trouble. The large States wished to 
be represented according to population. The small States 
wished representation in the new Congress to be on the same 
basis as it was under the Confederation ; that is, one State, 
large or small, was to have one vote and no more. After a 
long debate a compromise was reached : in the Senate the 
States were to have equal representation, each State being al- 
lowed two Senators (15); in the House of Representatives 
the States were to be represented in proportion to population 
(7). After it was agreed that a State was to have a num- 
ber of representatives apportioned to its population, a question 
of enumeration arose. When counting the people of a State 
should every human being count one? In the South there 
were vast numbers of slaves : should these be included in the 
enumeration which was to determine the number of repre- 
sentatives a State was to have? The members in the Con- 
vention from the southern States wished them to be included ; 
the members from the northern States, where the slaves were 
few in number, thought the slaves ought not to be counted. 
This disagreement also ended in a compromise. It was pro- 
vided that five slaves should be counted as three persons 
(8). In order to determine the number of representa- 
tives a State was to have, the census (9) was to be 
taken every ten years; until such census was taken, New 
Hampshire was to have three representatives, Massachusetts 
8, Rhode Island i, Connecticut 5, New York 6, New Jersey 
4, Pennsylvania 8, Delaware l, Maryland 6, Virginia 10, 
North Carolina 5, South Carolina 5, and Georgia 3. Thus 
the new Congress was to have 26 Senators and 65 representa- 
tives. In the first Congress a State was entitled to one Rep- 
resentative for every 30,000 inhabitants (10). If this 
ratio had been retained, the present House of Representa- 
tives would have over 3,000 members. But the ratio of rep- 
resentation has been raised from time to time and is now 
one to every 211,877. This gives a House of 435 members. 



2i6 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

The Under the Articles of Confederation there had been no pro- 

ExeCU- ... . , rr^, , . . 

tive Vision for a separate executive department, ihe adminis- 

trative work of the Confederation had been attended to by 
specially appointed committees of Congress. But the mem- 
bers of the Convention established a strong executive depart- 
ment and placed a President at its head (78). The manner 
of selecting the President gave rise to a vast amount of dis- 
cussion. Some wanted him to be elected by Congress, but 
this plan was strongly opposed on the ground that it would 
tend to subordinate the executive to the law-making branch. 
An election by a popular vote of the whole country was sug- 
gested, but this plan was opposed on the ground that the 
ordinary citizen was unable to judge who was fit to be the 
Chief h'xecutive of a great nation. The discussion was ended 
by adopting a plan of indirect election : The President was 
to be chosen by State colleges of electors, the electoral col- 
lege of each State to have a number of electors equal to 
the combined number of Senators and Representatives to 
which it was entitled in Congress (81). Each State was 
to select its electors in a way agreeable to the legislature (80) ; 
the legislature could appoint the electors itself ; it could vest 
their appointment in some other body or it could call upon the 
people to elect them. When selecting a President each elector 
was to vote for the man of his choice. 

The The organization of the new government was completed 

by the establishment of a judicial department, at the head 
of which was the Supreme Court of the United States 
(105). The position of a federal judge under the new 
government was to be one of great responsibility. He was 
to administer justice not only between man and man, but 
between State and State. The framers of the Constitution 
therefore thought it necessary to make the federal judiciary 
as independent as a department of government could be. It 
gave the appointment of the federal judges to the President 
(97), but it provided that they could be removed only by 
the process of impeachment, that is, they were to hold their 
ofiices for life. It provided also that the salary of a federal 



Judiciary 



FORMLNG A MORE PERFECT UNION 217 

judge could not be decreased, although it might be increased 
if Congress so desired. 

What powers were given to the new government? When The 
bestowing power upon the federal government the members of the 

. . . . Federal 

of the Convention were inclined to deal with a sparmg hand. Govem- 
The States, extremely jealous of their rights, were unwill- 
ing to surrender to the new government any power that it 
did not seem absolutely necessary to surrender. The two 
new powers that the central government needed the most 
were the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce 
and the power to borrow money and levy taxes. These two 
powers were given. Add to these the old powers which Con- 
gress already had under the Articles of Confederation 
(p. 220) and we have the principal powers which the fed- 
eral government was to have under the Constitution. (See 
Article I. section 8 of the Constitution.) 

The authority of the new central government was to be The 
complete and undisputed. All lawmakers, both State and na- Law 
tional, and all the executive and judicial officers, both of the Land 
United States and of the several States, were bound by oath 
to support the Constitution (128) ; while the Constitution 
itself, the laws of Congress and all treaties made under the 
authority of the United States, were to be the supreme /aw of 
the land (127), and judges in every State were to be bound 
thereby, no matter what the State constitution or State laws 
might be. Here was the most important provision of the 
new scheme of government — the Constitution was to be the 
supreme law of the land. " Draw out this particular bolt and 
the machinery falls to pieces." 

73. THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

The draft of a constitution was finished in September 1787, Manner 
and was promptly submitted to the Congress of the Confed- scation 
eration which was then holding sessions in New York. Ac- 
cording to its own provisions, the new Constitution was to be 
valid when ratified by nine States (129). This was a bold 
provision, for the Articles of Confederation, which were to 



2l8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Feder- 
alists 
and 
Anti- 
Feder- 
alists 



be superseded by the proposed Constitution, could not be 
changed without the consent of thirteen States. The Consti- 
tution itself, therefore, was in a sense unconstitutional. 
When the Constitution was received by Congress it was trans- 




Parade in honor of the Adoption of the Federal 
Constitution, 1788. 

mitted by that body to the legislatures of the several States. 
The State legislatures in turn submitted it to conventions 
of delegates chosen expressly for the purpose of ratifying 
or rejecting the new scheme of government. 

The question of ratifying or rejecting the Constitution di- 
vided men into two distinct parties. The friends of the Con- 
stitution were called Federalists, while its enemies were given 
the name of Anti-Federalists. Among the Anti-Federalists 
were Patrick Henry, Richard TTenry Lee, Samuel Adams, and 
other strong patriots who, cherishing individualistic notions 
of government, opposed the Constitution because they thought 
it created a central government that would destroy the 
rights of the States and become subversive of liberty. The 
advocates of paper money opposed it because it forbade a 
State to issue bills of credit (72). Among the Federal- 
ists were Alexander Flamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. 
These joined in writing in behalf of the Constitution a series 
of articles which were brought together in a book entitled The 
Federalist. These articles, setting forth in a most lucid and 



FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 219 

impressive manner the advantages to be derived from the 
Constitution, exerted a powerful influence upon pubHc opin- 
ion. Delaware was the first State to take action in regard 
to the proposed Constitution : on December 7 it decided in f a- 

STATE OP 

NORTH-CAROLINAt 

In Ccmmtim, Ifntmhtr J3, 1 789. 

\\ ESOLVED: nnanUnoufly, that it be rccom.- fluU hare the eicMiTe i^lil of naUa^ liuji ix«l' 

1\^ mended and enjoined on the reprefentatives of ^nd regulatioos for the abowparpo&aas tbcT flkatt 

tnU fiate in Congfe^aiTeinbled, to make appUcatioa Uunk proper, 
to CcngreTi and endearour to obtain the following 

amendment* to the conllUution for the future go> %• That the nembeis of die (am and boofe of 

>emment of the United States agreeable to the fe- jNerefenutint (hall be raelligible to, ud bcmpibl* 

cond mode propoled bjr the nfth article of the faid .'ofnolding any cifil office under the aatherity of th« 

conditation, which, when ratiEed agreeably to the United Staut, duiitg tht time for which tMJ ftall 

faid articls, fhall become a part of the conllftution, tcfpefiirelf ke cleAeA 
and that the eiecotife of thii ftaie be dircAcd to 

tranfmit a copy of the &id amcodmcota to each of 4- That the jonmali of the procecdhigi of the fl^ 

tU>« UDitcd ibtci. liateandhoDfeof reprefeouciTet flull be publiOted 

at leaft oiKe in ererj Tear, except fuch paru there<]f 

* m-%TTMrF-tT>Tis relating lo treatief, aOiancea, or military opentiaM 

AMENDMENTS. u in theirjudgmcnt require fecrecr. 

t(l. That Congrefi (hall not alter, modify, or ia> That ■ regular Aaleirieiit and leeooit cf ih< 

terfere in the timet; places, and manner of holdijtg receipts and eipenditurei. of all pablk ' ' ■* 



f ledioai for fenatort and reprefentaiifes, or either of be publiflied at leaA once tvery year. 

Ihem, eicept when the legtflature of any (late dial) 

Bcgle<9, reftiTe, or be difablcd by inrafion or rebdlioa & ThfltnoiUTigationIaw,orbwTtgiilatin|tna» 

to p^fcribe tlii fame, or iti cafe when the provifioa Oerce, (ball be pafled withont the coifent it t** 

IDSi)* by the (late is fo impetfefi aa that co tit&- tliirdiof the memben preint io both hoofet. 



fatat clcdion is had. 



ft. Tlut 



at no foldier Aall be enliftcd for any losgcC 

ti. ThatCongreft (haH not (Ereflly or iiwiirealy, term than four years, eicept in tiaie.ofvv, u4 

cither by tbemfeWes or throagh the judiciary, inter- then for no longs term than the continoaact of tiw 

fere with any one of the dates, in the redemptoo ot var. 

«aper money already emitted,and now in circulation, —m.r 1 % t. i t. ». l. 

or jnliqoidating and difchirging the public fectiritiea •• ">« «»"« tribunal, other than the Aatf% ■« 

ofnoy one of the fiate.) but each and every ftate prontled far trying impeachmenu affaatt** 

Amendments Recommended for Adoption. 

vor of ratification. Five days later Pennsylvania did likewise. 
State after State now agreed to the Constitution, so that by 
the end of June, 1788, it had been ratified by nine States.^ 

It was now certain that the new federal government would The End 

, . . of the 

come mto power. Accordmgly, on July 2, 1788, the Presi- confedet- 

dent of the old Congress of the Confederation announced 

that nine States had ratified the Constitution and that steps 

should be taken to put the new government into operation. 

1 In several of the States where the Constitution was ratified certain amend- 
ments were recommended for subsequent adoption. Accordingly when the new 
government was organized Congress submitted (122) to the States for ratifica- 
tion the first ten amendments. These were promptly ratified and declared to be 
in force in 1791. The chief purpose of these amendments was to limit the power 
of Congress and to prevent the federal government from encroaching upon the 
rights and privileges of individuals. 



220 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISIORY 

With this purpose in view Congress ordered that the States 
should choose presidential electors on the first Wednesday in 
January 1789; that the electors should vote for President 
and Vice-President on the first Wednesday in February, and 
the Senate and House of Representatives should meet in 
New York on the first Wednesday in March, which happened 
to be the fourth of March. Thus the old government passed 
quietly out of existence, and thus the way was prepared for 
the installation of the new governmciil. 
The The old Congress, which by 1788 had become so weak and 

Services .. , /, • i 

of the meffective that it felt constramed to put an end to its own 

Old Con- . . . 

grass existence, was a body that had rendered services of the high- 

est value during the formative period of our national life. 
It had given us the Declaration of Independence ; it had con- 
ducted the Revolution to a successful issue; it had held the 
country together through eight years of war and five of 
peace; it had plunged into the mysteries of national self-gov- 
ernment and laid the foundations for a permanent political 
system. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Constitutional government: Forman, 31-36. 

2. Reasons for a new constitution: Hart III, 177-184; Harding, 88- 
102. 

3. What were the views of Samuel Adams upon popular govern- 
ment? Hart III, 93-96. 

4. The members of the Convention of 1787: McMaster I, 419-423. 

5. The debates on representation in the Convention : McMaster I, 
441-443, 446-451- 

6. Federal and State Powers : Forman, 49-60 ; 72-74. 

7. Congress under the Constitution: Forman, 115-130. 

8. The Presidency: Forman, 132-137. 

9. The Law of the Land : McLaughlin, 236-252. 

10. The Constitution before the people : McMaster I, 434-504 ; Mc- 
Laughlin, 277-229. 

11. Hamilton's defense of the Constitution (1788): Hart HI, 241- 
243- 

12. A plea for the rights of the States : Hart III, 247-240, 

13. Dates for the chronological table: 1787, 1788. 



FORMING A MORE PERFECT UNION 221 

14. Read in the class a striking passage from Patrick Henry's speech 
against the Constitution : Harding, 67-87 ; a passage from Madison's 
speech in favor of the Constitution : Harding, 88-102. What were the 
views of Alexander Hamilton in regard to popular government? 
Tell two anecdotes relating to Franklin in the Convention. Why did 
Rhode Island refuse to send delegates to the Convention ? Read in the 
class "Good Advice in Bad Verse: Hart III, 200-203. What is the 
elastic clause of the Constitution? Prepare a chart showing the powers 
which belong to the federal government and those which belong to the 
State. Give the dates showing the progress of the ratification of the 
Constitution: Harding, 50-51. Why were Rhode Island and North 
Carolina late in joining the Union? If they had not joined it at all 
what would probably have been their history? 

15. Special Reading. Max Farrand, The Framing of the Constitu- 
tion. C. A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of 
the United States. James Schouler, History of the United States, 
Vol. I. 



XXI 

SETTING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 

Between 1789 and 1801 the political machinery provided by the Con- 
stitution was set in motion and our federal system of government was 
firmly established. Who were the men that laid the foundation of this 
system and what organization of government did they effect? With 
what problems, foreign and domestic, did the new government have to 
deal? How did it meet these problems? 

74. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW FEDERAL GOVERN- 
MENT. 

The In accordance with the terms of the Constitution, presiden- 

£lection 

of tial electors were chosen in January 1789, and in February 

ington the electoral colleges expressed their choice for President and 
Vice-President. The electoral vote should have been counted 
by Congress on the fourth of March in New York, the tem- 
porary capital, but bad roads and long distances prevented a 
prompt meeting of the newly-elected body. On the sixth of 
April, however, Congress assembled and the electoral votes 
were counted. It was found that every elector had cast his 
vote for George Washington and that John Adams of Mas- 
sachusetts stood second on the list. Washington was there- 
fore (83) declared to be elected President and Adams Vice- 
President. 
Wash- In selecting Washington as the first executive of the new 

a°^a°° nation the electors made the wisest choice possible. No other 
man man in America was endowed with qualities of statesman- 

ship higher than those possessed by Washington. He was 
tolerant, far-seeing, charitable, judicious, patient, firm. " In 
civil as in military life," says the English historian Lecky, 
" Washington was preeminent among his contemporaries for 
the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect 




George Washington. 
|| From the portrait by John Tiuniljull now in the City Hall, New York, 



224 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the 
indomitable firmness with which he pursued every path which 
he had deliberately chosen Of all the great men in history 
he was the most invariably judicious." The choice of the 
electors was as popular as it was wise, for Washington was 
not only first in war and first in peace, but he was also " first 



The 

First 
Inaugura- 
tion 



The 
Organi- 
zation 
of the 
Execu- 
tive 
Depart- 
ment 




Washington entering Trenton. 

in the hearts of his countrymen." " Our jealousy," said Jef- 
ferson in 1788. " is put to sleep by the unlimited confidence 
we all repose in the person to whom we all look as our Presi- 
dent." 

As soon as Washington was informed of his election he 
set out from Mount Vernon to the scene of his duties. His 
journey northward was a triumphal march. When he 
reached New York he found that April 30th had been fixed 
as the date of his inauguration. Accordingly, on that day, 
in the presence of the two houses of Congress, he took the 
oath of ofifice and the history of the United States under the 
Constitution began. 

One of the first things to be done by Congress and the 
President was to breathe life into the Constitution by provid- 
ing an effective organization for the new government. Three 
executive departments were speedily created : a department 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 



225 



of finance (Treasury), a department of foreign affairs ( State); 
and a Department of War.^ At the head of each department 
(93) was placed an officer known as the Secretary, who 
was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Sen- 
ate. When choosing men to fill these offices, Washington dis- 
regarded party affiliations and political beliefs. His sole aim 
was to secure the services of the best men available. For 
his Secretary of State — as the head of the department of 
foreign affairs was called — he chose Thomas Jefferson, a 
man as well fitted for the place by natural aptitude and by 
experience as any that could be found in America. For the 
Secretary of the Treasury — as the head of the department 
of finance was called — he chose Alexander Hamilton, who 
had been his military secretary during the Revolution. Ham- Alex- 
ilton was only thirty-two years of age, yet his great abilities Hamii 
had already won for him a foremost place among public men 
Washington chose him for the post of the Treasury because 
he believed the young man was 
endowed with special genius for 
finance and the expectations of the 
President were more than realized. 
In the management of the dis- 
ordered finances of the country 
Hamilton achieved a success that 
placed him among the great finan- 
ciers of history. " He smote," said 
Daniel Webster, " the rock of the 
national resources and abundant 
streams of revenue gushed forth. 
He touched the dead corpse of the 
public credit, and it sprang upon its 
feet." In the work of launching 

1 From time to time Congress created new departments, as follows: The Post- 
Officc Department in 1794; the Department of the Navy in 1798; the Department 
of the Interior in 1849; the Department of Agriculture in 1862; the Department 
of Justice in 1870; the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. In 1913 
the Department of Commerce and Labor was abolished and in its stead two de- 
partments w-ere created, viz., the Department of Commerce and the Department 
of Labor. 




bj peiiiH»biuin.£ AUa,iMtU:ie hiiiinl 

Alexander Hamilton. 

Painted by James Stiarpless. 



226 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Organi- 
?ation 
of the 
federal 
Judiciary 



the new government under the Constitution the services of 
Hamilton were ahnost as important as those of the President 
himself. For his Secretary of War Washington chose Gen- 
eral Henry Knox of Massachusetts. The task of Knox was 
light, for the little army which he was to manage numbered 
less than a thousand men. As the law oflicer of the new 
government Edmund Randolph of Virginia was selected and 
was given the title of Attorney General.^ 

Congress also speedily organized a new federal judicial 
system. In September 1789, it passed the famous Judiciary 
Act which provided that the Supreme Court of the United 
States should consist of a Chief Justice (22) and five asso- 
ciate Justices. The same law provided that the inferior tri- 
bunals (106) of the federal system should consist. of four cir- 
cuit and thirteen district courts. The federal judges like the 
federal executive officers were appointed by the President 
and confirmed by the Senate (97). John Jay of New York 
was appointed the first Chief Justice. At first the business 
of the federal courts was small and insignificant. Chief Jus- 
tice Jay soon resigned, his reason being that " the office was 
so unimportant that it was not worth his while to retain it." 
On some of the circuits the judges had so little to do that 
they thought it necessary to formally notify the public that the 
new courts were in existence. It was not many years, how- 
ever, before the judicial department of the new government 
was as important as either of the other two departments. - 



The 

First 
Tariff 



75. THE FINANCIAL MEASURES OF THE NEW GOVERN- 
MENT. 

The thing most needed by the new government was money, 
for the Confederation had ended its days in a penniless condi- 



1 The Attorney General was regarded as a member of the cabinet, although the 
Department of Justice, of which he is now the head, was not established until 1870. 

2 In 1793 one Chisholm of South Carolina sued the State of Georgia in the 
federal courts for the recovery of a claim and won his case. Here a State was 
brought into a federal court by an individual from another State. This was a 
wound to State pride, so the Eleventh Amendment was speedily adopted (in 1798) 
and after its adoption a State could not be sued against its will in a federal court 
by a citizen of anotiiei State (145). 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 227 

tion. Even before Washington was inaugurated, James Madi- 
son, then a Representative from Virginia, brought before 
Congress a measure for raising the revenue which was so 
sorely needed. His plan was to lay a tariff on foreign im- 
ports. But upon what principle should the tariff law be 
framed? Should the duties be levied simply with the view of 
raising a revenue, or should they be fixed with the view of 
protecting home manufactures from competition with foreign 
goods? The debate in Congress indicated a strong leaning 
among some of the members toward the principle of protec- 
tion, and the bill itself bore the sub-title of " An Act for the 
Encouragement and Protection of Manufactures." Neverthe- 
less, the law as passed (July 4, 1789) was in the main a 
revenue rather than a protective measure. It laid moderate 
duties on tea, coft"ee, molasses, wines, spirits, glass, and tin. 
The average rate of duties was only 8 per cent., the lowest 
scale ever imposed by Congress in a general tariff act. In- 
deed, it was so low that the revenue thus derived was found 
to be insufficient. Therefore in 1792 an excise, or internal tax, 
was levied on liquor and wines, which, added to the customs 
duties, yielded the necessary revenue. Thus at the outset the 
new government was placed on a sound financial basis. 

But the internal taxes were not everywhere willingly paid. The 

„ , . J Whisky 

The frontiersmen of western Pennsylvania, accustomed to insurrec- 

tion 
convert their corn into whisky, thought they ought to be per- 
mitted to market their crop in the form of a beverage un- 
hindered by a government tax. So, when the federal reve- 
nue officers attempted to collect the whisky tax they were 
stoutly resisted and in some cases violently attacked. But 
Washington sent 15,000 soldiers against the law-breakers, and 
the Whisky Insurrection was soon put down. This incident 
showed that a new order of things had indeed been estab- 
lished; it showed that there was now a central government 
which had an arm strong enough to enforce its laws. 

The new government inherited from the Confederation a Provid- 
"^ ing 

burdensome debt, for the debts contracted by Congress un- for the 

der the Confederation were to be valid against the United 



228 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Assump- 
tion 
and the 
Selection 
of a Site 
for a 
Capital 



States under the Constitution (125). Hamilton, as Secretary 
of the Treasury, promptly came forward with a plan for meet- 
ing the public debt and restoring the lost credit of the United 
States. There was a foreign debt of $12,000,000, a domes- 
tic debt of $42,000,000, and a war debt contracted by the sev- 
eral States of $21,000,000. Hamilton's plan was to pay not 
only the foreign and domestic debt of the Confederation, but 
to assume the war debts of the several States as well. Every- 
body was for paying the foreign debt in full, but there were 
serious objections against paying the domestic debt in full. 
Many of the certificates of this debt had passed out of the 
hands of the original holders into those of speculators who 
had bought up the certificates at a price far below their full 
value ; for which reason some men in Congress thought it 
unjust to pay full value to holders who had purchased their 
certificates perhaps at an absurdly low rate. But Hamilton 
urged payment in full, contending that this payment would 
strengthen the credit of the new government. The views 
of the great financier prevailed; all holders of the old obliga- 
tions of the Confederation were permitted to exchange their 
certificates at face value for new bonds. 

The strongest opposition to Hamilton's plan was that which 
was directed against the proposed assumption of the State debts. 
Such assumption, it was said, would be an encroachment 
upon the revenue powers of the State, and would saddle upon 
the States that had small debts more than their just propor- 
ti(m. The scheme for assumption was about to be rejected 
by Congress when it was carried to success by being coupled 
with another question, namely, the location of the new na- 
tional capital (61). Many of the Southern members of Con- 
gress wished the new federal city to be located on the Po- 
tomac ; many of the Northern members wished it at some 
point further north. " The Pennsylvania delegates entered 
into a bargain with the Southern delegates to oppose assump- 
tion ; in return the capital was to be fixed at Philadelphia for 
fifteen years, after which it was to be removed to the Po- 
tomac. r>iit the slorv got abroad and the House struck out 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 229 

Philadelphia and inserted Baltimore. Then Hamilton had 
an interview with Jefferson and on the next day Hamilton, 
Madison, and others took dinner at Jefferson's house, where 
the bargain was completed over fine punch and Madeira. The 
capital was to be removed to Philadelphia for ten years and 
then permanently established on the banks of the Potomac ; 
the State debts were to be assumed." (Avery.) This 
agreement was faithfully kept : before Congress adjourned it 
passed Hamilton's plan of assumption and made provision 
for locating the new capital on the banks of the Poto- 
mac. 

Another financial measure of Hamilton related to the estab- The 

First 

lishment of a bank in which the new federal government should Bank 

of the 

have a direct interest. At the time there were but three banks umted 

states 
HI the entire country, one at Boston, one at New York, and 

one at Philadelphia. But these were all State banks. Hamil- 
ton desired to have a strong central national bank which should 
act as the fiscal agent of the national government, a bank which 
could be relied upon to lend money to the government and 
which would furnish a safe depository for the government's 
funds. Accordingly, in the face of strong opposition, the 
Bank of the United States was chartered by Congress (in 
1791) for twenty years, with a capital stock of $10,000,000. 
The government took $2,000,000 of the stock, thereby becom- 
ing an active partner in the banking business. The bank was 
in every way successful. When it was opened in Philadel- 
phia for the sale of stock, all the shares were taken within 
an hour. The notes of the bank were everywhere received 
at their face value, and its stock paid a dividend of 8 per cent. 
" The services of the bank to the infant government were 
important. It gave an easy and safe means -of handling the 
public revenue, it provided a steady and ample currency . . . 
and it offered facilities for the business of the country." Yet, 
notwithstanding its great usefulness, the bank had many ene- 
mies. When its charter expired in 181 1, its friends were 
unable to secure a renewal and the First Bank of the United 
States passed out of existence. 



230 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

The Congress also took steps for improving the currency, which, 

of Gold under the Confederation, was in such a disordered condition. 

and . . . . ... 

suver The Constitution, depriving the individual States of the right 
of coinage (72), had lodged that power entirely with the Fed- 
eral government. Accordingly in 1792 Congress established 
a mint and enacted a coinage law which provided for the free 
coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of fifteen ^ to one, the 
gold dollar to contain 24.75 grains of pure metal and the sil- 
ver dollar 371.25 grains. Any person with gold or silver 
bullion could take it to the mint and have it made into coins 
free of expense. All gold and silver coins issued by the 
mint were made a " lawful tender in all payments whatso- 
ever." 

^e. THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL PARTIES. 

The financial measures of the new Government were of 
The inestimable value to the country, yet the opposition which 

crauc- they stirred up was so powerful that it led to the formation 
lican^" of a political party whose organization has been continued 
*'*^ to the preseuit day. This was the Democratic-Republican 
party, soon to be known simply as the Democratic party. 
This new party was led by Thomas Jefferson, who opposed 
the measures of Hamilton on the ground that they gave the 
federal government more power than it ought to have, and 
more power than the Constitution said it should have. Jef- 
ferson believed in a strict construction of the Constitution : 
he believed that the only powers which the federal govern- 
ment could lawfully and rightfully bring into use were those 
which were explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. For 
example, he thought that Hamilton's bank scheme was un- 
lawful because the Constitution nowhere explicitly gives the 
federal government the power to establish banks. The Demo- 
cratic party, therefore, stood for a strict and narrow construc- 
tion of the Constitution, and for the preservation of the rights 
of the States. " I consider," said Jefferson, " the foundation 
of the Constitution is laid on this ground, that all powers not 

1 In 1834 the ratio was fixed at sixteen to one. 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 231 

delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States and to 
the people (144). To take a single step beyond the boundaries 
specially drawn around the power of Congress is to take pos- 
session of a boundless field of power." 

Opposed to JetTerson's party of strict construction was the The 
Federalist ^ party, which during Washington's administration aiist 
held the reins of government. The dominant spirit of this 
party was Alexander Hamilton. That great man believed in 
a liberal or broad construction of the Constitution. He be- 
lieved that in addition to the powers specifically enumerated in 
the Constitution there were many other reserved and implied 
powers which could be rightfully exercised by the federal 
government. For example, he justified his bank scheme on 
the ground that there was a natural and obvious relation be- 
tween the institution of a bank and the execution of such 
enumerated powers as the collection of taxes (44) and the 
borrowing of money (46). The Federalist party, there- 
fore, stood for a broad and liberal construction of the Con- 
stitution and for a strong federal government. 

The Federalists and the Republicans distrusted each other Party 
profoundly and opposed each other with great bitterness. The 
Federalists regarded their opponents as anarchists, as ene- 
mies not only of the Constitution but of all government. In 
the opinion of the Federalists, a Republican hated the Con- 
stitution because he hated to obey the laws and pay his debts 
and taxes and carry out his contracts. The Republicans in 
turn accused the Federalists of being hostile to liberty and 
to republican institutions. In Hamilton's financial schemes 
the Republicans saw deep-laid plans for corrupting members 
of Congress and for organizing the Government on the Eng- 
lish plan of King, Lords, and Commons. Jefferson asserted 
again and again that the Federalists desired to establish a 
monarchy. Party lines between the Federalists and Repub- 
licans were sharply drawn and party warfare soon became so 

1 The Anti-Federalist party dissolved after the ratification of the Constitution. 
Many of its members naturally found their proper places in the Republican party. 



232 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Election 
of 
1792 



Govern- 
ment 
by 
Party 



fierce that close personal friends belonging to different parties 
ceased to speak to each other. 

The results of party division were clearly seen in 1792 in 
the second presidential election. Washington, it is true, was 
reelected unanimously, for both the Republican and the Fed- 
eralist electors gave him their votes. But in the election of a 
\'ice-President there was a division along party lines. The 
Republicans tried to defeat Adams, who was a strong Feder- 
alist, by bringing out George Clinton of New York, but Adams 
was successful, receiving 'j'j electoral votes while Clinton 
received only 50. In Congress the Republicans had better 
success, for in the House of Representatives which was elected 
in 1792 they had a majority. 

Washington was himself a Federalist. Throughout his 
first term, however, he tried to maintain a non-partisan ad- 
ministration. But the experiment was a failure. By the 
time his second term was well under way he was convinced 
that a bi-partisan cabinet was undesirable. " I shall not," he 
said in 1795, " while I have the honor to administer the gov- 
ernment, bring a man into any office of consequence knowingly 
whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the 
general government are pursuing." Tims early in our history 
our government became a government of parties, and it has 
never ceased to be administered on a party basis. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The election and inauguration of Washington: Halsej^ IV, 51-61; 
McMaster I, 525-541. 

2. Jefferson's opinion of Hamilton : Hart III, 286-289. 

3. Hamilton's opinion of Jefferson: Hart III, 289-292. 

4. Hamilton's financial system; McMaster I, 569-583. 

5. Public debt : Forman, 288-294. 

6. The federal executive departments : Forman, 139-145. 

7. The federal judiciary: Forman, 147-153. 

8. The first tariff debate: Hart HI, 262-264. 

9. Party government in the United States : Forman, 79-85. 

10. A date for the chronological table: 1789. 

11. Prepare a list of all the Secretaries of States. How many of 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 233 

these have either been Presidents or candidates for the Presidency? 
To what extent did the tariff of 1789 attempt to protect American manu- 
factures? Give a full account of the Whisky Insurrection: Mc- 
Master II, 189-202. What prominent man was among those who joined 
in the uprising? Compare the action of the federal government in 
respect to the Whisky Insurrection with the action of the government 
of the Confederation in respect to Shays's Rebellion. What was the 
origin of the word "caucus"? Read in the class a striking passage 
from the speech of Fisher Ames in favor of Jay's Treaty : Harding, 
128-149. 

12. Special Reading. John S. Bassett, The Federalist System. J. P. 
Gordy, History of Political Parties. R. W. Griswold, The Republican 
Court. James Schouler, History of ihe United States, Vol. I. 



XXII 

SETTING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MO- 
TION, 1789-1801 (continued) 

•JT. FOREIGN RELATIONS. 

The During Washington's first term the new government was 

Revoiu- engaged chiefly with domestic affairs ; during his second term 
foreign affairs came in for the largest share of attention. 
The event which drew the United States into the whirlpool 
of foreign affairs was the mighty social upheaval known as 
the French Revolution. For centuries the common people 
of France had been overtaxed by a corrupt and extravagant 
government and had been oppressed by a cruel and arrogant 
aristocracy. About the time, however, that Americans were 
battling for their independence, the French people were also 
beginning to think of freedom, and by 1789 were ripe for a 
revolt against their masters. And they asserted their power 
in a terrible fashion. They tore up society from its founda- 
tions. They swept away nobles, peers, and all institutions 
that were out of harmony with their doctrines of liberty and 
their notions of human rights. For a time the King was al- 
lowed to retain his throne. But monarchy too was doomed. 
In Sei)tember, 1792, the National Convention proclaimed 
France a republic, and a few months later Louis X\T, the 
proud descendant of a hundred kings, was guillotined near the 
broken statue of one of his own ancestors. This act alarmed 
every monarch in Europe, and within a year France was at 
war with the combined forces of England, Spain, Austria, 
Prussia, and Russia. 
Sympathy In America the new French republic was hailed almost 
French everywhere with delight. The news of a great French victory 
over the forces of the allied nations at Valmy brought forth 
tremendous rejoicings. At Philadelphia, now the temporary 

234 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 255 

^•apital, church bells were rung, shops were closed, and the 
people could talk of nothing but the liai)penings in I'rance. 
" At New York a whole day was given over to feasting and 
firing of cannon. At Boston the birth of the new republic and 
the expulsion of its invaders was celebrated with a grand civic 
feast, and men and women seemed to have gone mad with 
enthusiasm." 

But while the people generallv were delirious with joy Prociaraa- 

. " . tionof 

in government circles there were cool heads. Washington Neu- 
saw that the United States was compelled to take a stand 
in regard to the war that was being waged between France 
and England. The problem which confronted him was a 
difficult one. We owed a debt of gratitude to France for the 
aid she gave us during the Revolution and by the terms of 
the treaty of 1778 (p. 190) we were expected to defend the 
French interests in the West Indies and to grant to France cer- 
tain special privileges in our own ports. On the other hand to 
incur the hostility of England by taking sides with her enemy 
would expose the United States to great danger. Washing- 
ton, after consulting with his secretaries, decided upon a 
course of strict neutrality. In April 1793, he issued a proc- 
lamation to the efifect that the United States would take the 
side of neither England nor France, but would remain on 
friendly relations with both belligerent powers. Thus at the 
very outset the American government entered upon a policy 
of keeping clear of European entanglements. 
About the time the proclamation was issued, Edmond Genet, Genet's 

. . Mission 

a Minister of the new French republic and an ebullient patriot, 

appeared in America and in an over-zealous manner appealed 
to the people to take up the cause of France in spite of the 
action of Washington. But his appeal was in vain. The 
sympathies of thousands of Americans were undoubtedly with 
France, but the best interests of the country required a policy 
of neutrality. The people saw this and supported Washing- 
ton, as they always supported him. 

Although our government refused to take sides against f®^^^"' 
England in 1793, we nevertheless at the time had no great ^^^1^*^ 



22>(i ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

reason to be very friendly toward that country. England 
still held the western forts and she was still doing what she 
could to injure American commerce (p. 221). Soon after 
the outbreak of war between France and England, the English 
government issued orders instructing British warships to 
seize all vessels loaded wholly or in part with corn, flour, or 
meat bound to any port in France, or to any French colony. 
In the execution of these orders hundreds of American vessels 
were seized and in many instances valuable cargoes were con- 
demned. Moreover, British naval officers persisted in search- 
ing American ships for seamen of British birth, and if any 
English-born subjects were found they were taken and im- 
pressed into the service of England. Even American-born 
citizens were sometimes thus taken from American vessels 
and impressed. So great were the outrages committed by 
England that we would have been justified in going to war. 
Jay's But Washington held firmly to a peaceful course. He 

Treaty ° . 

sent John Jay to London to negotiate a treaty that would 

establish better relations between the United States and Great 
Britain. Jay succeeded in efifecting a treaty by which the 
western forts were to be given up, but which otherwise was 
not very favorable to the United States. Jay was unable to 
secure a guarantee that American vessels w^ould be no longer 
disturbed and that American seamen would be no longer im- 
pressed. Still, it was thought that half a loaf was better than 
no loaf at all, and accordingly the treaty was ratified (June 
1795) by Washington and the Senate (95). The House of 
Representatives voted the money necessary to execute the 
treaty, but passed a resolution which virtually asserted the right 
of the House to deliberate upon any regulation for a treaty 
requiring the expenditure (69) of money. The treaty was 
unpopular in the extreme. All over the country it was bit- 
terly denounced and in many places effigies of Jay and the 
treaty were burned together. As it turned out, however, the 
treaty was not so unfavorable to the Americans after all. 
Under its workings our commerce increased in volume and 
the seizures of our vessels diminished in number. 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 237 

7Z. THE RETIREMENT OF WASHINGTON AND THE ELEC- 
TION OF JOHN ADAMS. 

About the time the Jay treaty was meeting with such bit- TheRe- 
ter denunciation, Washington's second term was drawing to ^ 
a close. The great man was now by no means so popular as ington 
he had been. About 1794 he began to show a distinct prefer- 
ence for the Federalist party, which caused the Republicans 
to regard him as their greatest enemy. In February 1796, 
the House of Representatives, then controlled by the Re- 
publicans (Democrats), refused to adjourn for half an hour 
in order to go and pay him its respects, as it up to that time 
had been accustomed to do. All over the country there could 
be found those who denounced him as an aristocrat, an An- 
glomaniac. and a monocrat. He was even accused of over- 
drawing his salary. Yet, in spite of these violent outbursts 
of opposition, Washington was still strono- in the affections 
of the people, and there is - 
no doubt that if he had 
desired a third term he 
would have been elected. 
But he felt that the time 
had come for him to retire 
to private life. In 1796 
he published his farewell 
address and when his sec- 
ond term ended (March 4, ^^^ ^°^"* ^""°"- 

1797) he retired to Mount Vernon, where he lived quietly 
and happily until his death. 

By the withdrawal of Washington, the Presidency was for The 
-' . . . Election 

the first time thrown open to the rivalry of candidates. The of 

Federalist party had several candidates, the chief aspirants Adams 
being Adams, Hamilton, and Jay. The Republicans centered 
their forces upon their great leader, Thomas Jefferson. The 
result of the election showed that the party division had been 
made along sectional lines : every Southern State except Mary- 
land was Republican, while every Northern State was Fed- 




238 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



eralist. When the electoral votes were counted, Adams re- 
ceived 71, Jefferson 68, Thomas Pinckney 59, Aaron Burr 30, 
while the others were scattered. In accordance with the Con- 
stitution as it then stood, Adams was declared to be elected 
President and Jefferson Vice-President (83). Thus under 
the cumbersome electoral system as it was first devised, it was 
possible for the candidate of one political party to be chosen 
President while the leader of another party was chosen Vice- 
President. 



The 

Trouble 

with 

Trance 



79. MORE TROUBLE WITH FRANCE. 

Adams inherited from his predecessor a legacy of trou- 
ble with France. The Jay treaty had deeply offended the 
French people, who construed it as being unfriendly to the 
interests of their country. Accordingly, the treaty was no 
sooner signed than the French Republic began to show its dis- 
pleasure. By the time Adams took his place at the helm 
(March 4, 1797) the American Minister to France had been 
sent out of the country and French cruisers were seizing 
American vessels on the high seas. In April 1797, Adams re- 
ceived a message informing him that the French government 

would have nothing further to do 
with the United States until the 
grievances of France were re- 
dressed. Expecting war, he at 
once convened Congress in special 
session (100) in order that pro- 
vision might be made for organiz- 
ing an army and for defending the 
coast. 

But Adams did not wish war 
any more than Washington had 
wished it. With the hope of heal- 
ing the breach through treaty ar- 
rangements, he despatched as en- 
voys to l-'rancc Charles C. Pinckney, Elbridgc Gerry, and 
John Marshall. These envoys were met at Paris by three un- 




John Adams. 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 239 

official agents ^ of the P>cnch government and were informed 
that if a treaty were secured a considerable sum of money The 
by way of bribe would first have to be paid to French officials, Affair 
and that the United States would have to lend money to 
France to enable her to carry on the war against England. 
A direct official interview with the French government was 
denied to the envoys. 

When Adams heard of the insulting manner in which his Prepara- 

. tions 

envoys had been treated, he declared he would never again for 

. . ~ War 

send a minister to France unless he was first assured that the 
minister " would be received and honored as the representative 
of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation." The re- 
port of the envoys caused much bitterness of feeling through- 
out the United States and there went up a clamor for a war 
with France. Congress responded to the clamor and passed 
warlike measures. A navy department was created, ves- 
sels were equipped for fighting, and extra taxes for meet- 
ing the expenses of the war were laid. A new regiment was 
added to the little army and 10,000 volunteers were enlisted 
for a term of three years. Adams encouraged the war-spirit 
and for a while he tasted the sweets of popularity. But this 
was not to last long. In 1799 France expressed a willingness 
to receive envoys from the United States. Adams, still wish- 
ing to avert war if possible, responded to the overtures. He 
sent envoys to France, and in September 1800, a treaty was 
entered into by which peaceful relations between the two 
countries were restored and stipulations for the better pro- 
tection of American commerce were made. This treaty was 
very unpopular with those who were clamoring for war, and 
it brought upon the head of Adams a storm of censure and 
abuse. There can be no doubt, however, that Adams acted 
wisely, for he saved the United States from a costly, unneces- 
sary, and perhaps a disastrous war. 

1 The names of the French agents who dealt with the American envoys were 
known in the diplomatic records as x, y, z, and these letters have always been 
used to give a name to the affair. The names of the agents were Hottingeur (x), 
Bellamy (y), and Hauteval (z). 



240 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Alien 

Act 



The 
Sedi- 
tion 
Act 



The 

Kentucky 

and 

Virginia 

Eesolu- 

tions 



80. THE DOWNFALL OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY. 

By the time the first term of x\dams was drawing to a close, 
the Federahst party was approaching its downfall. One cause 
of its decadence was dissension among the leaders. Hamilton 
and Adams had quarreled hitterly and their differences had 
caused a split in the party. But a greater cause of weakness 
was the legislation which the Federalists enacted while the trou- 
ble with France was brewing. In June 1798, the Federalists 
forced through Congress the so-called Alien Law. This law be- 
stowed upon the President the power to order all such aliens 
as he should judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the 
United States, or should have reasonable ground to believe 
were concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations 
against the government thereof, to leave the United States 
within such time as he might direct. If any alien thus or- 
dered to depart should refuse, he was to be imprisoned for 
not more than three years. If he obeyed the order and then 
returned, he was to be imprisoned at the will of the Presi- 
dent. As a further discouragement to aliens a law extending 
the period of naturalization (48) to 14 years was passed. 

The Alien Act was followed in a few weeks by the Sedi- 
tion Act. This imposed a heavy fine upon any person con- 
spiring to oppose any measure of government, and upon any 
persons publishing any false or scandalous or malicious writ- 
ing against the National Government, Congress, or the Presi- 
dent. The chief purpose of these laws was to frustrate the 
plans and silence the tongues of those who sympathized with 
France, and criticized the President for his action in regard 
to French affairs. The Alien Law enforced itself: the ob- 
noxious persons against whom it was directed took alarm and 
fled — Adams did not deport a single man. But ten editors 
and printers, all of them Republicans, were convicted under 
the Sedition Act. 

The Republicans felt that the Alien and Sedition Acts were 
aimed at themselves, and they protested strongly against the 
measures, contending that Congress was forbidden by the Con- 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MOTION 241 

stitution to pass laws interfering with freedom of speech 
(132) or personal liberty (138). In November 1798 the 
Republican legislature of Kentucky passed the famous Ken- 
tucky Resolutions, drawn up by the hand of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, declaring that the Alien and Sedition Laws were con- 
trary to the Constitution and that it was the duty of the 
States to combine and refuse obedience to the two oppressive 
statutes. The next month, resolutions of the same nature, 
drawn up by James Madison, were adopted by the Legislature 
of \irginia. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were 
sent to the other States for consideration. In the North where 
the Federalists were in control the replies were unfavorable ; 
in the South no replies were made. The hidden meaning of 
the Resolutions was that if the States desired they could by 
combined action " nullify " or set aside a law of Congress. 
The nullification foreshadowed in the Resolutions, however, 
was to be accomplished by a combination of several States, 
not by a single State. 

The irritation caused by the Alien and Sedition Laws and The 
the strength of the Republican opposition to these laws were of Jef- 

• fcrsou 

seen in the presidential election of 1800. The Federalist can- 
didates for President and Vice-President in that year were 
John Adams and C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina, while 
the Republicans brought forward Thomas Jefferson and Aaron 
Burr. These candidates were nominated by caucuses of mem- 
bers of Congress, the system of nominating conventions not 
having yet made its appearance. When the electoral votes 
were counted it was found that Jefferson and Burr had each 
received y^ votes and Adams 65. Inasmuch as no name was 
highest on the list (83) the election had to be carried to 
the House of Representatives. After a long struggle ^ Jeffer- 
son was elected President and Burr Vice-President. 

With the defeat of Adams the national government passed 
out of the hands of the Federalist party into those of the Re- 

1 With the view of preventing such dis]nites as arose at this time, the adoption 
of the XII Amendment vi'as secured (in 1804). By this Amendment the election 
of the President (147) is made an affair entirely distinct from the election of a 
Vice-President. 



242 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

publican — or as we may now call it — the Democratic party 
The Federalist party never fully recovered from the defeat. 
However, during its short life of twelve years it had accom- 
plished a great work: it had breathed life and power into the 
Constitution and set the new federal government firmly on 
its feet. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. International Relations: Forman, 256-262. 

2. The French Revolution : Robinson and P>eard I, 224-247 ; Hart 

in, 303-305. 

3. Genet's complaint: Hart HI, 307-312. 

4. Neutrality and the mission of Genet: IMcMaster II, 8^-141; Hart 
III, 305-307. 

5. The seizure of American vessels: Hart III, 312-314. 

6. Jay's Treaty: McMaster II, 212-229. 

7. The quarrel with France (1797-1798) : McMaster II, 311-320; 
Hart III, 322-326. 

8. The Alien and Sedition Laws: McMaster II. 389-399. 

9. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutiors: McMaster II, 418-426; 
McElroy, 211-264. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1795, 1798, 1799. 

11. Read in the class the passage of Washington's Farewell Address 
which you think is most significant: Harding, 152-163. Why did 
France expect the cooperation of the United States in 1793? What 
celebrated novel describes the scenes of the French Revolution? Sum- 
marize the achievements of the federal government during the ad- 
ministrations of Washington and John Adams. 

12. Special Reading. J. P. Gordy, History of Political Parties in 
the United States. John Marshall, Life of George Washington. Wood- 
row Wilson, George Washington. John T. Morse, Jr., John Adams. 
Henry Cabot Lodge, Ale.vander Hamilton. J. S. Bassett, The Fed- 
eralist System. 



XXITI 
A SURV'EY OF THE NEW -BORN NATION 

What kind of a country did \vc have when Jefferson took his place 
at the head of the National Government? What social and political con- 
ditions prevailed? What progress had been made in commerce and 
manufactures? What movements in population were taking place and 
what new settlements were being made? 

8i. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS. 
In 1790 when the first census (9) was taken the popu- Popuia- 

tion 

lation of the United States was 3,929,214; in 1800 it was 
5,308,483. In 1800 about 95 per cent, of the inhabitants lived 
in the open country or in small villages. Only five cities 
(Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Charles- 
ton) had a population of more than 8,000, and the combined 
population of the five was less than the present population 
of the single city of Denver. Philadelphia, with a popuia- The 
tion of 70,000, was the largest city in the United States, and cities 
in the opinion of a French traveler was one of the most 
beautiful cities in the world. New York came second, with 
a population of 60,000; Baltimore was third in rank with 
26,000. Boston followed Baltimore with 25,000. Charles- 
ton, still the metropolis of the South, had a population of 
10,000. 

The everyday life of the people in the new nation was still Religion 
the plain, simple affair it had been in colonial times. In all 
the States religion still held a foremost place in the lives and 
consciences of the people, although in most all of the States 
the affairs of religion had been entirely separated from the 
affairs of government, and churches were no longer supported 
at public expense. Common schools were few and illiteracy 
was widespread. In respect to higher education, however, y^"*'*" 

243 



244 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

some progress was being made. In addition to the nine col- 
leges founded before the Revolution (p. 157) there had been 
established by 1800 Bowdoin College in Maine, Middlebury 
College in Vermont, Williams College in Massachusetts, Cnion 
College in New York, Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, 
Georgetown College in the District of Cohnnbia, and St. 
John's College in Maryland. Covcrnment was still in the 
Th^ hands of a learned, aristocratic class, and the right to vote 

\\a^ Still I li' I .' i.i ciiiiin classes — to those who owned 

» ^ - -.--f-wr-ja* - .^ certain amount 

, JIK^ WL i)i property or held 

High Stieet (now Market Street), PhiladcipiuLi fi,„,, oT^.^o'.,- t-r^ 
(about 1800). ^"^y aPPe'ir to- 

day. The only use 
Material to which steam was ])ut was to dri\e machinerv in factories. 

Conditions ' _ - _ 

Streets were poorly paved and were lighted only by dingy 
lamps. Most of the useful inventions which now do so much 
to make life agreeable and comfortable w-ere still in the realm 
of the undiscovered. 
Slavery About ouc-fifth of the entire population consisted of negro 

men" slaves. An overwhelming majority of these were in the 

States south of the Potomac. In the Northern States slavery 
as an institution was declining. At the opening of the nine- 
teenth century every State north of the Mason and Dixon's 
Line had either abolished slavery or had taken steps that would 
lead to universal freedom. In the South, too, there was a 
strong sentiment against slavery. Before 1800 Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had all for- 
bidden the importation of slaves and in some of these States 



A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 245 

there were movements for the enianoipation of the bhick race. 
Thomas Jefiferson was ahiiost bitter in his opposition to 
slavery, while Washington by his last will emancipated the 
slaves on his plantation. But the invention of the cotton-gin 
— presently to be noticed more fully — and the consequent ex- 
pansion of cotton culture soon checked the anti-slavery move- 
ment in the South and caused the Southern planter to cling 
tenaciously to the institution. 

When the question of dealing with slavery came up before 
Congress that body declared that it had no power in regard 
to slaves ^ except to assist masters in securing the return of 
fugitive slaves — a power which by implication was given to it The 
by the Constitution (117). In 1793 Congress passed a fugi- Fugitive- 
tive-slave law which remained in force fifty-seven years. By Law 
the terms of this law a master or his agent might recover a 
slave by taking him before a federal judge, or a local magis- 
trate, who, without a jury trial, could determine the question of 
ownership. 

In regard to the conditions of slave life a traveler (Isaac The 

° Conditions 

Weld) in 170"; made the following observations: " The of 

''-'-} ° Slave 

slaves on the large plantations are in general very well pro- Life 
vided for and treated with mildness. During the three months, isoo 
nearly, that I was in Virginia, two or three instances of ill 
treatment towards them came under my observation. Their 
quarters, the name whereby their habitations are called, are 
usually situated one or two hundred yards from the dwell- 
ing-house, which gives the appearance of a village. Adjoin- 
ing their little habitations the slave commtmity have small 
gardens and yards for poultry which are all their own prop- 
erty ; they have ample time to attend to their own concerns 
and their gardens are generally well stocked and their flocks 
of poultry numerous. Besides the poultry they raise for 
themselves they are allowed liberal rations of salted pork 
and Indian corn. In short, their condition is by no means 
so wretched as might be imagined. They are forced to work 

1 Congress had the power to prohibit the importation of slaves after January i, 
j8o8 (63), and in 1807 it passed a law making such importation unlawful. 



246 



ADVANCIiU AMERICAN IIISIORY 



certain liours in the day, hut in return they are clothed, dieted, 
and lodged comfortably, and saved all anxiety about provi- 
sion for their offspring." But this description of slavery, the 
same traveler said, applied mainly to \'irginia. In some of the 
other States he found that slaves were treated in a manner 
that could iiot possibly be defended upon grounds either of 
humanity or justice. 



The 

Prosper- 
ity 
of the 
Farmer 



The 
Back- 
ward 
Condi- 
tion of 
Agricul- 
ture 



The 
Plow 



82. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS. 

Agriculture was the mainstay of the new nation as it had 
been the mainstay of the colonies. More than nine-tenths of 
the people were engaged in farming. The wars which raged 
in Europe for more than twenty years after 1793 (p. 234) 
created a brisk and unusual demand for provisions. Ameri- 
can farmers, quick to take advantage of this market were, by 
1800, sending abroad large quantites of wheat, corn, hams, 
beef, and pork, and were receiving for these commodities ex- 
cellent prices. 

Although farming was the chief source of our wealth, agri- 
culture as an art had advanced little beyond what it was 
in Europe in the fifteenth century (p. 5). Fertilizers for 
improving land were seldom used. When a piece of land 
would no longer yield a crop, it was abandoned for a bet- 
ter piece, for land in almost every State was abundant. 
The plow was still made mostly of wood. On the rudely 
constructed wooden mold-boards were fastened the blades of 
old hoes, thin strips of iron, or worn-out horseshoes. The 
beam was a simple straight stick. The handles were cut 
from the branches of a tree. Thomas Jefferson improved 
the plow by designing a mold-board constructed according 
to scientific principles. In 1796 Charles Newbold of Fjurling- 
ton, New Jersey, made a plow wholly of cast iron, but the 
New Jersey farmers did not take kindly to the iron plow. 
They said that iron poisoned the crops and caused weeds 
to grow. So, Newbold could not sell his iron plows. The 
methods of harvesting crops were as primitive as the method 
of tilling the ground. The grain was still cut by the sickle. 



A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 247 

altliniigh about 1800 the grain-cradle was coming into use 

and was driving out the ancient sickle. Grain was still 

th resiled from the straw by the flail or tramped out by the 

slow feet of oxen. 

In 1800 there was one product of the farm that was in- The 

. . Cotton 

creasing at a startling rate. This was cotton. At the begin- Gin and 

. . . . . Cotton 

ning of the national period we were raising but little cotton Culture 
because the difficulty of separating the cotton from its seed 
was so great. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a machine by 
which the separation could be easily made. With the ap- 
pearance of Whitney's Cotton Gin the cultivation of cotton 
enormously increased. In 1791 we produced only two mil- 
lion pounds of cotton ; in 1801 we produced forty-eight million 
pounds. 

The great output of cotton was necessary in order to supply The 

, r , ,11, • . . Indus- 

the vast number 01 looms that had been set m motion in trial 
England by the flying-shuttle of Kay, the spinning-machine tion 
of Arkwright, and the steam engine of Watt. Before the 
appearance of these inventions textiles were generally woven 
in the home or in a little shop where there were seldom 
more than two or three looms. But after the power-loom 
and the steam engine came into use the little shop with its 
two or three looms disappeared and in its stead there arose 
the great factory with its hundreds of looms and scores of 
operators. As it was with weaving so it was with many 
other industries : during the second half of the eighteenth 
century great inventions and improved machinery caused 
the household and the shop system of industry to be 
abandoned and the factory system to be established. This 
reorganization was so complete and so radical that it was in 
fact an industrial revolution. 

In England, and to some extent on the continent, the in- House 
dustrial revolution was well under way by the end of the Indus 
eighteenth century. In America, however, industry in 1800 
was still in the household stage. " Furniture, hats, shoes, 
simple iron instruments, and many other articles which in 
later times were made by machinery were then made by 



248 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Begin- 
ning 
of the 
Factory 
System 



Commer- 
cial 
Matters 



Roads 

and 

Bridges 




Carding, drawing, roving, and spinning as 
introduced by Samuel Slater, 1790. 



village artisans or by plaiitalioii mechanics."" In some i)arts 
of the country nearly all the clothing of the people was 
made by the people themselves on their own looms. 

Neverthelcs'^, bv 1800 we were making some progress in 

manufacturing. In 
1790 Samuel Slat- 
er, an Englishman 
by birth, but the 
father of Ameri- 
can manufacturing, 
went to Pawtucket, 
Rhode Island, and 
set up a good-sized 
cotton factory, 

equipping it with 
machinery such as 
was used in England. The Pawtucket mill was a success and 
its establishment may be regarded as the beginning of the in- 
dustrial revolution in America. Notwithstanding this progress. 
however, we were by no means able in 1800 to supply all our 
wants in respect to manufactured articles; we were still de- 
pendent upon England for those manufactures which required 
skill in making. 

If in 1800 the United States was backward in manufactur- 
ing, it was progressive in commercial matters. Especially 
prosperous was our foreign commerce, thanks again to the 
European wars. Our total foreign trade increased from less 
than $50,000,000 in 1790 to more than $200,000,000 in 1800. 
During the same period our exports rose from $19,000,000 
to $94,000,000. Our shipping interests were also in a highly 
prosperous condition, the freight earnings of American ves- 
sels amounting to more than $30,000,000 a year. Our coast- 
wise and river trade was also in a flourishing condition. 

Rut our inland and overland trade was light. This was 
due to bad methods of travel and transportation. The day 
of bridge-building and road-building had not yet arrived. 
" The same bad roads and difficult rivers connecting the same 



A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 249 

small towns stretched into the same forests in 1800 as when 
the armies of i'.raddock and Amherst pierced the western 
and northern wilderness." In 1801, of the eight rivers and 
creeks between JetTerson's home (Monticello) and Wash- 
ington, five were without bridges or boats for crossing. 

By 1800 post-offices had been established in all parts of The^^ 
the country but postage was regulated according to distance, o^^e 
For distances under 30 miles the postage on a letter was six 
cents : between 30 miles and 60 miles eight cents, and so 
on, the rate increasing until for a distance of 500 miles the 
postage was twenty-five cents. Newspapers were not yet 
carried in the mails and postage stamps for letters had not 
yet been invented. Although the rates of postage were so 
high, the total receipts of the Post-office Department in 1801 
' J were only $320,000, or less than is received now in a single 
/ small city. Nothing could show more plainly the separated 
and isolated existence which the people lived than this meager- 
ness of postal receipts. A grown person mailed on an 
average only about one letter a year. 

,j 83. A WESTWARD-MOVING PEOPLE. 

The most significant fact of American life at the close of West- 

..... ward 

the eighteenth century was the wave of civilization which was Move- 

, ° -' . . ment 

moving toward the West. After the Revolution, especiallv of Popu 

^ . lation 

after 1789, settlers began to push out into the vacant lands 

beyond the mountains at a startling rate. At the close of 
the Revolution there were probably not more than 50,000 
white inhabitants within the boundaries of the United States 
west of the Alleghanies. Between 1790 and 1800 the popu- 
lation of western Pennsylvania increased 60,000. In 1790 the 
total population of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Northwest 
Territory was little more than 100,000; by 1800 it had jumped 
I to nearly 400,000. 

By 1800 the whole western country as far as the Missis- Kentucky 
sippi had been marked oflf and organized for purposes of 
government. Kentucky, as we have seen (p. 145), originally 
belonged to Virginia, but the Kentuckians desired to live under 



250 



ADVANCIiD AMERICAN HISTORY 



Tennes- 
see 



Missis- 
sippi 
Terri- 
tory 



Settle- 
ments 
along 
the 
Ohio 



the government of a separate State. After years of agitation 
their -wishes were f ulfihed : in 1789 Virginia consented to a 
separation and in 1792 Kentucky was admitted (118) to the 
Union as the second ^ of the adopted States. In 1784 the 
Tennessee country (p. 146) was organized as a separate State 
called I'ranklin, in honor of Benjamin Franklin. John Sevier 
was elected governor of Franklin, and Greenville was made the 
capital of the State. But the State of Franklin had only a 
short life. In 1788 North Carolina asserted its rights to the 
Tennessee country and the officers of Franklin were divested 
of power. In 1790 Tennessee was given over by North Caro- 
lina to Congress to be governed as a Territory, and in 1796 it 
was admitted to the Union. In 1798 a strip of land " bounded 
on the west by the Mississippi, on the north by a line 
drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chat- 
tahoochee River, and on the south by the thirty-first de- 
gree of north latitude " w'as set off as the Mississippi Terri- 
tory. 

But the most important extension of the area of settlement 
during the closing years of the eighteenth century was to- 
ward the Northwest. We saw (p. 209) that the Ordinance of 
1787 was passed mainly for the purpose of providing a govern- 
ment for a settlement which was projected by a company of 
New Englanders. This settlement was made at the mouth of 
the Muskingum River, where the foundations of Marietta were 
laid in 1788 and where a territorial government ^ for the 
Northwest Territory was at once established, the first governor 
being General Arthur St. Clair, a soldier of the Revolution 



1 The first State to be admitted into the Union under the Constitution was Ver- 
mont. The Vermont people during the Revolution had adopted a constitution and 
had declared Vermont to be an independent State, but it was not recognized as 
such for the reason that the Vermont region was claimed by New York. In 
1790 New York withdrew her claim and in 1791 Vermont was admitted. 

* Usually a Territory passed through two stages of government. In its first 
stage, while the number of its legal voters was less than S.ooo, it had no law- 
making body, and was governed entirely by the governor, judges, and other 
officers appointed by the President. When the number of legal voters came to be 
more than 5,000 the Territory passed into the second stage of government and 
was given a territorial legislature elected by popular vote, the executive officer* 
and the judges still being appointed by the President. 



A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 



251 



and a warm personal friend of President Washington. Cin- 
cinnati was founded in the same year, and within a few yearj- 
the towns of Belpre, Gallipolis, Portsmouth, Manchester, and 
South Bend sprang up on the banks of the Ohio. 

The interior of the Territory teemed with Indians, who in The 

TrsEtv 

1791 became so troublesome that General St. Clair was com- of 
pelled to march against them. But St. Clair sufifered a ter- viUe 
rible defeat. General Anthony Wayne was then sent against 
the red warriors. Meeting them in battle at Fallen Timbers 
(in 1794), he dealt them such a blow that they gladly en- 




Boundaries established by the Treaty of Greenville. 



tered into an agreement known as the Treaty of Greenville 
(1795)- By this treaty a boundary line between the Indians 
and the whites was established. The region south and east 
of the line, including about two-thirds of the present State 
of Ohio, was ceded to the whites. The region north and 
west of the line was to remain in possession of the Indians. 
With the Indians out of the way the settlement of the The 

. Terri- 

Ohio country went on unimpeded. Towns now were built tory 
farther up the streams and further inland. In 1795 Dayton west 
and Chillicothe were founded, and the next year saw the Ohio 
beginnings of Cleveland. In 1800 the Northwest Territory 



252 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Frontier 
Line in 
1800 



was divided, the eastern portion l)eing set off as the Terri- 
tory Northwest of the Ohio, while the western portion was 
called Indiana Territory and was given a territorial govern- 
ment of its own. The population of the Territory Northwest 
of the Ohio was now more than 40,000 and its people were 
already clamoring for statehood under the terms of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. 

Thus by 1800 two flourishing States west of the Alleghany 
Mountains had been added to the Union and three great ter- 




Wolf Creek Mills— The First Mill in Ohio. 



ritories had been organized and furnished with the machinery 
of civil government. Of course this meant an enormous in- 
crease in the area of settlement and a decided westward ad- 
vance of the Frontier Line. The settled area of the United 
States in 1790 was about 240,000 square miles; in 1800 it 
was upwards of 300,000 square miles. The Frontier Line 
in 1790 — 'if we disregard the detached settlements — was 
in some places still east of the Alleghanies and in no place was 
it far west of those mountains. By 1800 the Frontier Line 
in many places ran hundreds of miles west of the Alle- 
ghanies, the limits of western settlement being marked by a 
line running from Osv/ego, New York, to Cleveland, to Cin- 
cinnati, to Louisville, to Nashville, to Savannah. 



A SURVEY OF THE NEW-BORN NATION 



253 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

I. Begin llic preparation of a Table oi Admitted States according 
to tlie following plan : 





, 


-a 


, 















CJ 


fXj 






Name 


(/■J 


'*-> c 


<*- -" 


^ 


Popula- 


Origin or 


n f, 





c s 


•" 


tion 


Derivation 


of State 


s 


a; r. 


C 


rtii 


in 1910 


of name 


































Q ^ 


Ph -" 


< 






Vermort .... 


1791 


Fort 


o..Sfi5 


355-956 


From the 








Dummcr 






French 

J'ert Mom 


Kentucky . . 


1774 


179J 


Harrods- 
burg 


40,400 


2.jS'9,095 


From an 
Indian word 
Kentake 
meaning 
"]\Ieadow 
Land" 


Tennessee . .. 


1769 


1796 


Watau- 
ga 


42.050 


-.184,789 


From an 
Indian word 

meaning 
■'River of the 

Big Bend" 



2. Social life in the United States in 1800: AIcMaster II, 538-582; 
Hart III, 14-48. 

3. Describe the economic conditions which prevailed in the LInited 
States between 1789-1801 ; Hart III, 49-72. 

4. The industrial revolution: Robinson and Beard II, 30-52; Bo- 
gart. 106, 162-163. 

5. Territories and Dependencies : Fot man, 184-193. 

6. The postal service in the early days : McMaster II, 59-65. 

7. The navigation of the Mississippi : Ogg, 400-459. 

8. Early land cessions: McMaster II, 476-481. 

9. Life in the West in 1800: McMaster II, 144-146. 

10. The introduction of manufactures into the United States : Bogart, 
140-158. 

11. The invention of the cotton gin (Greely) : Halsey IV, 74-82. 

12. The settlement of Ohio: Halsey IV, 108-113; McMaster I, 505- 
516. 

13. A date for the chronological table: 1793. 

14. How to found a settlement: Hart HI, 97-101. 



254 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

15. Characteristics of America (1800) : Hart III, 23-27. 

16. The people of the woods: Hart III, 464-467. 

17. The Steam-Engine : S. E. Forman, Useful Inventions, 54-72. 

18. The Loom : Forman, Useful Inventions, 109-124. 

19. Grozvth in Population: — -The growth of the United States in 
population is shown in the following table : 

1 790 3,929,214 

1800 5.308,483 

1810 7,J39,88i 

1820 9,638,453 

1830 , 12,866,020 

1840 17,069,453 

1850 23,191,876 

i860 31,443,321 

1870 38,558,371 

1880 50,155,783 

1890 62,947,714 

1900 75,994,575 

1910 91,972,266 

li-M^) ! i - ■' - f ■ ■■ 

20. Special Reading. S. A. Drake, The Making of the Ohio Valley. 
F. S. Riley, History of Mississippi. Avery, History of the United 
States Vol. VII. 



XXIV 

THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 

(1801-1817) 

In the opening years of the nineteenth century the chief task of our 
national government was to protect the commerce of the United States 
against the depredations of the warring powers of Europe. What were 
the wrongs which were inflicted upon our commerce? How were these 
wrongs redressed, and how was our commercial freedom secured and 
preserved ? 

84. JEFFERSONIAN SIMPLICITY. 

"When the time came for Jefferson's inauguration the Fed- JJ^^ 
eral government was estabhshed in its new home on the cfty'**^ 
banks of the Potomac. The offices of the government had 
been removed from Philadelphia to Washington in June 1800, 
and in December of that year Congress had met for the first 
time in the new capital. The city which is now the pride 
of the nation was then in a rude and primitive condition. 
Indeed the place was hardly more than a wilderness. From 
the site of the unfinished capitol one could look over the 
country for miles and see only a few lime-kilns, a few tem- 
porary huts for laborers, and long stretches of forest. In the 
autumn of 1801 Abigail Adams, the wife of President Adanis. 
while on her way from Baltimore to Washington was actually 
lost in the woods. When this first Lady of the White House 
arrived at the residence intended for the President it was 
so far from being completed that it was almost uninhabitable. 
For several months Mrs. Adams used the great East Room 
of the White House as a place for drying clothes. 

The ceremonies with which Jefferson was inducted into Jeffer- 
office were in keeping with the primitive character of the sim- 
surroundings. The inauguration of Washington, and also 

255 



2S6 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Jeffer- 
sonian 
Princi- 
ples 



that of Adams, had been marked by a dignity that was almost 
regal. But in the forest city in which Jefferson was in- 
augurated pomp and splendor were out of the question. The 
ceremonies were of necessity plain and simple, just as Jef- 
ferson desired they should be. The President-elect went from 
his own lodging to the unfinished Capitol on foot and in 

ordinary dress. His 
escort consisted of a 
small troop of mili- 
tia and a few citi- 
zens who joined the 
line of the little pro- 
cession. 

Jeft'erson felt — 
and he was justified 
in so feeling — that 
he was the leader of 
a great movement in 
popular government 
and in his inaugural 
address he gave a 
complete summary 
of his political faith. 
The principles an- 
nounced by Jeffer- 
son were : equal and 
exact justice to all 
men ; peace, com- 
Thomas Jeflferson. j^^j-ce, and honest 

friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the 
support of the State governments in all their rights ; the 
preservation of the general (national) government in its con- 
stitutional vigor as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and 
abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; 
absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority, the vital 
principle of republics ; the supremacy of the civil over the 
military authority ; economy in the public expenses ; encourage- 




son s 
Cabinet 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 257 

ment of agriculture and of commerce as its handmaid ; the 
diffusion of information (popular education) ; freedom of re- 
ligion ; freedom of the press ; freedom of the person under 
the writ of habeas corpus; trial by juries impartially selected. 

As heads of two of the great departments Jefferson selected J^ffer 
at once James Madison as Secretary of State, Henry Dear 
born of Massachusetts as Secretary of War. In a short time 
he chose as Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin of Penn- 
sylvania, one of the greatest financiers of the age. A Sec- 
retary of the Navy was so hard to find that at one time 
Jefferson thought he would have to advertise in the papers 
for a man. Finally, however, Robert Smith of Maryland 
accepted the position. Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts was 
chosen as Attorney General. 

With these associates Jefferson conferred freely. When Sr^H°®* 

-' _ _ -^ _ Meetings 

a question came up of sufficient magnitude to require the 
opinions of all the heads of departments, he called them 
together, had the subject discussed and, when a vote was 
taken, counted himself but one. Washington had usually com- 
I municated with the heads of the departments in writing (93), 
although both he and Adams sometimes conferred with 
them around the council board, as if in a cabinet meeting. 
With Jefferson, however, the holding of a cabinet meeting 
became a fixed custom of executive procedure. 

When the time (December 1801) came for Jefferson to The 

\, . . Presi- 

communicate with Congress he sent a written message to dent's 

^ , , . ° Message 

that body mstead of appearmg m person as his predecessors 
had done. During the administrations of Washington and 
Adams, the communications of the President with Congress 
had been attended with much pomp and ceremony. There 
had been a cavalcade, an oration by the President, a proces- 
sion of the members of Congress, and an address of reply. 
Jefferson's method was regarded as being in keeping with 
republican simplicity and the example set by him was fol- 
lowed by his successors for more than a hundred years. 

In his first message Jefferson recommended the rej)eal of Jeflfer- 
the internal taxes (p. 227), the payment of the public debt, Measures 



2S8 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

economy in public expenditures, and a reduction in the num- 
ber of officials. This message was sent to a Congress that 
was Democratic in both branches and that was in full sym- 
pathy with the President's plans. So, Congress enacted most 
of the legislation which Jefferson desired. It repealed the 
hateful whisky tax (p. 227) and left the customs duties as 
the principal source of federal revenue ; it provided for a 
rapid reduction of the national debt ; it reduced the expenses 
of the government from $7,500,000 to $5,000,000; it repealed 
the law passed at the previous session creating a number of 
new federal courts (53) which Jeft'erson regarded as useless; 
it shortened the term of residence required for naturalization 
from fourteen (p. 240) years to five years; it provided for a 
Congressional Library ; and it authorized the establishment of 
a military academy at West Point. ^ 

85. THE TRIPOLITAN WAR. 

Throughout his entire administration Jefferson was kept 
busy in protecting American commerce from the aggression 
of outsiders. First, there were the pirates of the Mediter- 
ranean to deal with. For centuries it was the custom of 
the little states of northern Africa to plunder the commerce 
of any nation trading in the Mediterranean unless immunity 
was purchased by the payment of tribute. Strange to say, 
most of the European powers found it more convenient to 
pay tribute than to fight. The United States at first followed 
the example of other nations, paying annually a sum of 
money for the sake of peace. Early in Jefferson's administra- 
tion the pirates demanded an additional sum for keeping the 
peace, pretending that the sum that had been paid before 
was for making peace. This was carrying the exactions too 
far; so the peace-loving Jefferson abandoned a cherished policy 
and determined to fight rather than pay tribute. The little 
navy of the United States was strengthened and sent (in 
1801) against Tripoli, the most offensive of the piratical 
states. The war, which was marked by many splendid deeds 

J A naval academy was established at Annapolis in 1S45, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 259 

of courage on the part of Americans, came to an end in 
1804 when a treaty of peace was made which reheved American 
vessels from paying further tribute. The Tripolitan War was 
costly, but it was worth more than it cost; for if there had 
not been an exhibition of American spirit there would doubt- 
less have been no end to the exactions and depredations of 
the piratical states. Moreover, in this war our navy gained 
what it lacked before — discipline and experience in real fight- 
ing. 

86. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
While Jefferson was defending our commerce against the The 

JlTi ggjg. 

pirates in the far-off Mediterranean he was called upon to sippi 

. ... 1 T o Closed 

uphold the mterests of American trade nearer home, in 1802 to the 
the Spanish authorities at New Orleans, in flagrant violation cans 
of a treaty made in 1795, closed the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi River to American citizens. This meant that Amer- 
icans in the Ohio Valley could no longer take the products 
of their farms down to New Orleans and there sell them 
as they had been accustomed to do. It meant that Amer- 
icans in the Ohio Valley would have no outlet at all 
for their commodities, for as yet it was impracticable to 
carry heavy articles eastward over the mountains to the sea- 
board cities. So, when the western people heard what Spain 
had done they flew into a rage and threatened to march 
against New Orleans with their own troops if the govern- 
ment at Washington did not come to their aid. 

Jefferson came to their aid, but in a way they did not ex- The 
pect. In 1800 Spain, by the treaty of San Ildefonso, made lana 
in secret, ceded Louisiana back to France (p. 139), but the 
execution of the treaty moved very slowly. Jefferson was 
pleased to see it move slowly, for he needed time to deal 
with the important question raised by the retrocession. He 
was strongly opposed to the occupancy of Louisiana by France. 
As long as a weak and exhausted nation like .Sj)ain occupied 
1 the country west of the Mississippi the United States had 
little to fear, but if an aggressive and powerful nation like 



26o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Opposi- 
tion 
to tbe 
Purchase 



France should take possession of Louisiana, Americans in the 
West might have a great deal to fear. Jefferson saw clearly 
that France must be kept out of Louisiana, yet he did not 
want a war. He desired to accomplish his purpose through 
diplomacy and this required time and some delay. But the 
outrage of closing the navigation of the Mississippi spurred 
him to immediate action, lie hurried off James Monroe to 
Paris to assist the American minister, Robert Livingston, in 
" enlarging and more efficiently securing our rights in the 
river Mississippi and in the territory eastward thereof." Mon- 
roe and Livingston were instructed either to buy New Orleans 
and the Floridas outright, or, if such a purchase could not 
be made, to secure the right of deposit at New Orleans. 
But before Monroe reached Paris, England and France were 
again at war with each other.^ After the renewal of hostilities 
Napoleon Bonaparte, the first consul of France and its virtual 
ruler, fearing that Louisiana would fall into the hands of 
England, and needing more money for carrymg on his wars, 
determined to sell the province to the United States and di- 
rected his minister to negotiate an immediate sale. The 
American envoys were without specific authority to make such 
a purchase, yet they decided to assume the responsibility of go- 
ing beyond their instructions. Accordingly in April 1803, 
they concluded a treaty by which France ceded to the United 
States the whole territory of Louisiana " forever and in full 
sovereignty." The purchase price was $15,000,000, or about 
3 cents per acre. 

It was a great bargain, but the treaty did not escape op- 
position. It was opposed by New England because that sec- 
tion was afraid there would be carved out of the new territory 
powerful States that would care nothing for the interests 
of the East. Jefferson himself at first looked askance at 
the treaty because he did not believe that the Constitution 
gave Congress power to purchase territory. Nevertheless, he 

1 The long war I)etween France and England, which began in 1793 (i). -'34), 
was brought temporarily to an end in 1802 by the treaty of Amiens. The 
peace, however, continued only about a year. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 



261 



urged the ratification of the treaty and quieted his constitu- 
tional scruples by recommending that the Constitution be so 
amended as to give Congress explicit power to make territorial 
acquisitions. 

This purchase was the greatest transaction in real estate The 

the world has ever seen. The acquisition not only doubled of the 

Farcbase 
the area of the United States, but gave us control of all the 

great river systems of North America. Out of the area in- 




The United States after the Louisiana Purchase. 

eluded in the purchase have been carved the States of Louisi- 
ana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota (in part), Kansas, 
Nebraska, Colorado (in part), North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Montana (in part), Wyoming (in part), and Oklahoma (in 
part) . Jefferson claimed that the purchase also included Texas 
and West Florida to the Perdido. 



87. THE UNFRIENDLY CONDUCT OF ENGLAND AND 
FRANCE. 

Jefferson's first term was so crowded with successes that 
he was chosen for a second term by an overwhelming ma- 



262 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Depre- 
dations 
upon 
Ameri- 
can 
Com- 
merce 



The 

Impress- 
ment 
of 
Seamen 



jority of the electoral college, but his second term brought him 
some disappointments and failures. The thing that gave him 
the most trouble was the unfriendly conduct of England and 
France. When war between these two nations was renewed 
in 1803 both powers began to make aggressions upon the com- 
merce of neutral nations and since the United States was a 
neutral power its commerce did not escape. In his message 
to Congress in December 1805. Jefferson thus described the 
depredations which were being made upon American vessels: 
" Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched 
by private armed vessels, some of these without commissions, 
some with legal commissions, but committing piratical acts 
beyond the authority of their commissions. They have cap- 
tured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as on the 
high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade 
with us, but our own also. They have carried them off under 
pretense of legal adjudicature, but not daring to affront a 
court of justice. They have plundered and sunk them by 
the way, maltreating the crews and abandoning them in boats 
in the open sea or on desert shores without food or cover- 
ing." In their treatment of neutrals both France and Great 
Britain went as far toward the total prohibition and destruc- 
tion of neutral commerce as it was possible to go. Their 
decrees and orders taken together were so broad and so 
sweeping that they amounted practically to a declaration that 
every neutral vessel found on the high seas, whatever might 
be its cargo and whatever might be the place of departure 
and destination, could be lawfully captured as a prize of war. 
In this assault upon neutral commerce, the United States 
suffered the greatest loss because it was the greatest neutral 
carrying power (p. 248). Between 1803 and 181 2 the British 
captured more than 900 American ships, while the French 
captured more than 500. 

In addition to the depredations upon our commerce we 
were sorely afflicted by the evil of impressment. In the mat- 
ter of impressment several nations were the offenders, for 
it was a custom of all maritime countries to impress seamen. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 263 

But the worst offender was Great Britain. This nation al- 
ways claimed the right to retake deserting seamen by force, 
but after Nelson's great victory at Trafalgar (in 1805) made 
Britannia the undisputed mistress of the seas she carried out 
her impressment policy in an unusually high-handed man- 
ner. 

" Asserting," says McMaster, " the principle, once a sub- 
ject always a subject, she claimed the services of every British 
sailor wherever and whenever found. Nothing could release 
him. If he produced naturalization papers from the country 
under whose flag he sailed he was told that England did not 
admit the right of expatriation. If he claimed to have volun- 
tarily enlisted in the service of a neutral and to be under con- 
tract for the voyage he was told that such agreements must 
give way at the call of his King." ^ 

In 1807 a downright outrage was committed in the name The 
of impressment. As the Chesapeake, an American frigate, peake' 
was leaving the port of Norfolk, Virginia, it was fired into 
by a British man-of-war and three of its men were killed 
and eighteen were wounded. The American vessel, being 
seriously crippled, was compelled to surrender and was 
searched for deserters. This outrage caused Congress to at- 
tempt to remedy some of the wrongs which were being in- 
flicted upon American commerce. In December 1807, the 
Embargo Act was passed. This act prohibited American The 
vessels from leaving the ports of the United States for the a^ ^^^'^ 
ports of any foreign power. The purpose of the act was 
to cripple the trade of England, it being the hope of Jef- 
ferson, who proposed the measure, that British merchants 
and laborers would feel the result of the embargo so keenly 
that Parliament would be forced to redress the many griev- 
ances of which the Americans complained. But in this hope 
Jefferson was disappointed : England was not seriously hurt 
by the Embargo and she paid little attention to it. But the 
Embargo, of course, did inflict great injury upon American The 
trade. The value of our exports dropped in a single year of the 
from $110,000,000 to $22,000,000, while our customs revenues 

1 History of the People of the United States, Vol. Ill, p. 243. 



264 



ADVANCED AAU'KICAN HISTORY 



The 

Non-inter- 
course 
Act 



Jefifer- 

son's 
Retire- 
ment 



fell from $16,000,000 to $7,000,000. The results of the stag- 
nation in trade were seen in all the cities along the coast. 
An English traveler (Lambert) gives the following descrij)- 
tion of the conditions in New York after the Embargo had 
been in force five months : " The port indeed was full of 
shipping, but they were dismantled and laid up. Their decks 
were cleared, their hatches fastened down, and scarcely a 
sailor was to be found on board. Not a bale, cask, barrel, 
or package was to be seen on the wharves. The few mer- 
chants, clerks, porters, and laborers that were to be seen 
were walking about with their hands in their pockets. A 
few coasting sloo])s and schooners which were clearing for 
some of the ports in the United States were all that remained 
of that immense business which was carried on a few months 
before. The streets near the waterside were almost deserted, 
the grass had begun to grow up on the wharves." Indeed 
the effects of the Embargo were so disastrous and the op- 
position to it was so strong that it had to be repealed fourteen 
months after it was enacted. In its place was substitued 
the Non-intercourse Act of 1809. This forbade American 
vessels to trade with England and France but permitted 
them to trade with other nations. 

About the time the Embargo was giving Jefferson so much 
trouble, his second term was drawing to a close. ^ He could 
easily have been elected for a third term, but rotation in of- 
fice was one of the cardinal points in his political creed. 
'* There are in our country,'' he said in 1807, " a great number 
of characters equal to the management of the affairs of 
the presidency. Many of them indeed have not had the op- 
portunities of making themselves known to their fellow-cit- 



1 The Burr Conspiracy. — Early in his second administration, Jefferson had to 
deal with the treasonable action of Aaron Burr. This restless and ambitious 
man had (in 1804) killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and this act had made 
him so unpopular that he decided to leave New York. He went to the South- 
west, where he entered into a plot to form a new nation somewhere in the West 
with himself as President. Jefferson kept himself informed as to what Burr 
was trying to do, and in good time he caused the schemer to be arrested and 
brought to trial on a charge of treason against his country (1807). The govern- 
ment failed to convict him of treason and he was released. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 265 

izens ; but many have had, and the only difficulty will be 
to chose among them. These changes are necessary to the 
security of republican government. If some period be not 
fixed, either by the Constitution or practice, to the services 
of the first magistrate, his office though nominally elective 
will in fact be for life ; and that will soon degenerate into 
an inheritance." 

So, Jefiferson followed the example set by Washington and E^g^g^ion 
refused a third term. His choice for a successor to him- °J^^j_ 
self fell upon James Madison. As Jefferson was the un- ^°^ 
disputed leader of his party his favorite was chosen as the 
candidate of the Democratic party. The Federalists put forth 
their former candidate Finckney (p. 241). The Democrats 
were easily the victors: Madison received 122 electoral votes, 
and Finckney 47. A better selection could hardly have been 
made, for next to Jefiferson himself, Madison at the time of 
his election was perhaps the greatest of American statesmen. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The National Capital: Hart III, 331-333; McMaster II, 482-489. 

2. Jefferson's influence: Halsey IV, 132-139. 

3. Sketch the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition : Halsey 
IV, 15^-169; Hart III, 381-384. 

4. What effect did the Embargo have upon the economic develop- 
ment of Nevi' England? McMaster III, 412; Coman, 173-175. 

5. Give an account of the effect of the continental wars upon the 
carrying trade: Bogart, 120-123. 

6. Sketch the history of the Louisiana Purchase : Halsey IV, 140- 
154; McMaster II, 625-630; Ogg, 495-538. 

7. Napoleon Bonaparte : Robinson and Beard I, 284-298. 

8. The vi'ar with Tripoli: McMaster III, 200-207. 

9. Enumerate the restrictions made by Great Britain and France 
upon foreign trade: Hart III, 400-403. 

10. Dates for the chronological table : 1803, 1806, 1809. 

11. Compare the present value of the region covered by the Louis- 
iana Purchase with its past value. Give a full account of the con- 
spiracy of Aaron Burr. (See Halsey IV, 180-185.) Read in the class 
"How Jefferson's Embargo Paralyzed Business" (Halsey IV, 201-204). 



266 ADVANCED AiMERICAN HISTORY 

Describe fully Hamilton's duel with Burr. Was Burr a traitor? 
What were the Jeffersonian principles of government? 

12. Special Reading. Henry Adams, History of the United States 
During the Administration of Jefferson and Madison, Vols. I-IV. 
John T. Moore, Jr., Thomas Jefferson. S. E. Forman, The Life and 
Writings of Thomas Jefferson. E. Channing, The Jeffersonian Sys- 
ton. H. B. Learned, The President's Cabinet. 



XXV 

THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 
(continued) 

88. DRIFTING TOWARD WAR. 

When Madison came to the Presidency (March 4, 1809), The 

... - Orders 

France and England were still at war, and the shipping of in 

the United States was still suffering at the hands of these and the 

. . , . . . - , Non-inter- 

rival powers. At one time it seemed as if satisfactory rela- course 
tions with England at least would be established. In April 
1809, Erskine, the British minister at Washington, gave Mad- 
ison to understand that if the United States would repeal the 
Non-intercourse Act (p. 264) Great Britain would rescind the 
Orders in Council, the decrees which gave authority for 
the many depredations upon our commerce. Relying upon 
Erskine's word, Congress in special session suspended (June 
1809) the Non-intercourse Act in so far as it applied to 
England. But Great Britain flatly disavowed the offer of 
Erskine. and Madison was obliged to declare the Non-inter- 
course Act still in force. In regard to our relations with 
France, Napoleon so adroitly managed affairs that it was al- 
most impossible to decide whether the French decrees against 
our commerce had been withdrawn or not. Still, Congress 
considered them as withdrawn and repealed (1810) the Non-in- 
tercourse Act in so far as it applied to France. Madison tried 
to persuade England to withdraw her Orders in Council, but 
England refused to do this because she believed that France 
had not actually revoked her decrees and was not acting in 
good faith. So while the restrictions of the Non-intercourse 
Act were removed in respect to France they were enforced 
in respect to England. Of course. Great Britain could not 
be pleased by a policy that on its face showed partiality toward 

267 



268 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Strained 
Relations 
with 
England 



the country with which she was engaged in a Hfe-and-death 
struggle, for the triumph of France at this time meant the 
downfall and ruin of England as a nation. 

But the Orders in Council were not the sole source of 
ill-feeling between England and the United States. In 1811 
on the frontier in the Northwest we were having a great 
deal of trouble with the Indians and there was reason to 

believe that the dis- 
content of the red- 
men was fostered 
by British traders. 
Governor William 
Henry Harrison of 
Indiana Territory 
said in December 
1811 : " Within the 
last three months 
the whole of the In- 
dians on the fron- 
tier have been com- 
pletely armed and 
equipped at the 
King's stores at 
Maiden." Although 
there is no good 
reason for believing 
that the British gov- 
ernment directly as- 
sisted the Indians 
in their uprisings, 
there was nevertheless a widespread belief in the United 
States that such assistance was given. Moreover, our diplo- 
matic relations with England suffered a severe stfain 
when in 1811 William IMnkney, our minister to Great 
Britain, left his post in disgust because he could see no 
prospect of securing fair treatment at the hands of the Brit- 
ish government. The withdrawal of Pinkney was almost 




James Madison. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 269 

equivalent to a severance of peaceful relations. Angry feel- 
ings between the two nations were further stirred (August 
181 1 ) by an actual encounter between the American frigate 
President and the British ship Little Belt. In the encounter 
the British vessel was worsted, and the exultations and re- 
joicings of the Americans over the affair showed plainly that 
a war spirit was rife. Indeed the war spirit had been rife The 

. War 

for some years, with the result that by 1812 there was in spirit 
the United States a vigorous war party demanding hostile 
acts against Great Britain. In Congress the war party was 
led by Henry Clay who spoke for the West and by John 
C. Calhoun who spoke for the South. Under the leader- 
ship of these rising young statesmen Congress was induced 
to wage war upon Britain. Madison was informed that if 
he wished reelection ^ he must come out for war. Though 
a man of peace, like Jefferson, he yielded to the war party, 
signing in June 1812, an act of Congress which declared peciara- 
that a state of war existed between the United States and of war 
Great Britain. The grievances recited in the declaration were : 
the violation of the American flag on the high seas ; the block- 
ading of our ports ; the impressment of our seamen ; the refusal 
of Great Britain to repeal the Orders in Council ; the Indian 
disturbances in the Northwest. Five days later and before 
the declaration reached England the British government with- 
drew its objectionable Orders in Council. If there could 
have been cable communication the war in all probability 
would never have begun. But as it was the action of the 
British government was too late. The storm that had been 
brewing for twenty years had at last gathered and broken. 

89. THE WAR OF 1812. 

When war was declared we were in an almost wholly de- The 

fenseless condition. Our little army of 6,000 men was scattered states 

at posts along the western and northern frontiers where soldiers pared 

11 1 r • , T 1- ^^ for War 

were needed as a defense agamst the Indians. Our navy con- 

1 Madison, was reelected in 1813 without a jjarty contest. 



2^o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Divided 
Senti- 
ment 



The 
Begin- 
nings 
of the 
War 




British Liner 
full sail. 



under 



sisted of about a dozen good fighting ships, while our enemy 
was the mistress of the seas with nearly a thousand war vessels. 

Our national finances were in a bad 
condition, for the revenues had 
been greatly reduced by the many 
interruptions to commerce during 
the preceding years. Our military 
leaders were nearly all old men, the 
veterans of the Revolutionary War. 
Even worse than this lack of 
preparation for war was the di- 
vided sentiment of the country. 
The North, especially New York 
and New England, did not want 
war because it would injure the 
commercial interests. Only in the 
frontier districts of the South and West was there a de- 
sire for hostilities. Of the members of Congress who 
voted for the declaration of war, three-fourths were from 
the Southern and Western States. In Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, and Rhode Island the sentiment against the war 
was so strong that the quota of soldiers which should 
have been sent from these States was flatly refused. One 
thing, however, was in our favor: Great Britain could not 
throw her full force against the United States, for her mighty 
struggle with Napoleon was at its height when the War of 
1812 was declared. 

The War of 18 12 began with an invasion of Canada by 
William Hull, who had served in the Revolutionary War. 
Hull crossed (July 12) from Detroit into Canada with about 
2,000 men, but in a little more than a month he had retreated 
and had surrendered without a blow to General Brock, the 
Governor of Canada. Michigan Territory quickly passed into 
the hands of the British and Ohio was saved with difficulty. 
In a few months the Americans made a second attack upon 
Canada in the neighborhood of Niagara, but they met with 
little success. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 271 



Our success upon' the water, however, the first year of the JJ^^^j 
war, was much greater than it was upon land. Although our Jj^^^f^®^ 



War 




navy was but a small affair 
it achieved a series of not- 
able triumphs over the ships 
of England. The most fa- 
mous of these naval victories was that which the United 
States frigate, the Constitution, \no\\ (August 181 2) over the 
British frigate Guerricre. This victory upon the ocean was 
matched by the achievement of Oliver Hazard Perry who with 
a hastily constructed fleet attacked a British squadron on Lake 
Erie off Sandusky, and totally defeated it (September 10, 
1813). The conduct of Perry and his comrades upon this 
occasion was, in the opinion of President Madison, such as to 
entitle them to the admiration and gratitude of their country, 
for it was a victory " never surpassed in lustre, however much 
it might be in magnitude." Perry's triumph saved Ohio from 
the British and made it easy for the Americans to regain 
control of Detroit and the Michigan country. 



272 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Cam- 
paign 
in the 
North 
in 1814 



A Diver- 
sion 



By 1814 the power of Napoleon had been broken and after 
his downfall England was free to send larger fleets and 
armies to America. The British now undertook a double 
campaign and threw a part of their strength against the North 
and a part against the South. A great number of the veterans 
who had fought in the Napoleonic wars were sent to the 
Canadian frontier. An invading force moved down Lake 
Champlain, with the purpose of taking possession of the upper 
Hudson country. But Captain McDonough with an impro- 
vised fleet met the invading squadron of the British at Platts- 
burg and defeated it in a victory which " added one more 
hero who could rank with Perry in public estimation." There 
was also in 18 14 much fierce fighting in the neighborhood 
of Niagara Falls. General Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, 
crossing into Canada, defeated the British at Chippewa Falls 
(J^^b' 5)- A few days later at Lundy's Lane the bloodiest 
battle of the war was fought, neither side winning a decided 
victory. The Americans held their ground for a while and 
then withdrew from Canada. Thus the result of all the fight- 
ing on the northern frontier was that the British failed to 
get a foothold upon the American soil and the Americans 
failed to secure a foothold in Canada. 

Before entering upon the campaign at the South the 
British by way of a diversion made several attacks at points 
along the Atlantic seaboard. In the summer of 1814 Gen- 
eral Ross led a trained army against Washington. After 
routing the militia (at Bladensburg) and driving the officers 
of the federal government into the woods, he plundered and 
burned the Capitol and the President's mansion. Having ac- 
complished their purposes at Washington, the British moved 
up to the larger and richer city of Baltimore. Here they 
were less successful than they had been at the little, unde- 
fended capital. Baltimore was prepared for the attack and 
when the British fleet attempted to pass Fort McHenry the 
defense was so spirited that the British abandoned the siege 
of the city and the fleet sailed away. 

Tt sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and joining with another 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 




The Capitol in 1814. 



British force began its canipaigii in the Soutli. It was the 
plan of the British to unite with the IncHans of the (iuit region 
and with the disaffected '^ 1 

French and Spaniards and 
drive the Americans en- 
tirely out of Louisiana. 
But l:)efore the English 
were read)' for oi)crations 
in the South, (ieneral An- 
drew Jackson had niarclied 
against the Creeks, the 
most powerful of \hc 
Southern Indians, and had defeated them in battle alter lit- 
tle. Having thus i)roken completely the power of the Indians, 
Jackson seized Pensacola in order to head off the British at 
that point and promptly prepared to defend New Orleans 
against the impending attack. The advance upon New Or- 
leans was begun late in 1814 when Sir Edvrard Pakenham 
with a fleet of fifty vessels and a force of nearly 10,000 
veterans began to move against the city. Though Jackson 
had a much smaller force, there were among his men a great 
many excellent riflemen of Tennessee and Kentucky. After 
several skirmishes Pakenham made a last charge upon the 
Americans (January 8, 1815)) but his men could not with- 
stand the terrific fire of the riflemen. Whole platoons of the 
British fell in their tracks. The invaders lost their com- 
mander and were repelled with a loss of more than 2,000 
men. The American loss was 8 killed and 13 wounded. 
So, Louisiana was saved to the T^nited States and its savior, 
Andrew Jackson, became the great hero of the South and 
West. 

When the battle of New Orleans was fought England and 
the United States were at peace, for a treaty ending the war 
had been signed by the contracting nations at Ghent on De- 
cember 24, 1814. The treaty settled nothing of importance; 
it was simply an a'^jreement to stop fighting. Nothing was 
said in the treatv about the impressment of seamen^ — a chief 



The 
Cam- 
paign 
in the 
South 
in 1814 



New 
Orleans 



The 

Treaty 

of 

Ghent 



274 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



cause of the war — and there was no giving up of territory 
by either side. So far as outward and immediate results were 
concerned the treaty left both nations at the end of the war 
precisely where they were at the beginning. It introduced, 
however, an era of peaceful relations between the two nations 
which lasted for a hundred years. 



Commer- 
cial 
Freedom 



The 
Growth 
of Manu- 
factures 



Competi- 
tion 
with 
England 



90. EFFECTS OF THE WAR OF 1812. 

Although the War of 181 2 was not a great struggle from 
the military point of view, although its direct results were 
small, it nevertheless affected profoundly the course of Amer- 
ican history. First of all, the war gave us our commercial 
freedom. Although England made no concessions in regard 
to impressment and the rights of neutrality, she nevertheless 
after the treaty of Ghent ceased to impress our seamen and 
desisted from interfering with our commerce. And other 
nations accorded us equal respect. After the War of 181 2 
we were done with Embargoes and Orders in Council and 
French decrees, and could work out our commercial destiny 
in peace ; trade on the ocean was free and sailors' rights se- 
cure. 

Then the industrial consequences of the War of 1812 were 
far-reaching. The Embargo and the war almost wholly ex- 
cluded foreign importations and rendered idle a large amount 
of capital that had been employed in the carrying trade. 
Much of this idle capital was invested in manufacturing. As 
a result, manufacturing in the United States was stimulated 
to a high degree. The greatest development took place in 
the textile industries of New England where the number of 
spindles increased from 80,000 in 181 1 to 500,000 in 181 5. 
and where the consumption of raw cotton increased from 
10,000 bales in 1810 to nearly 100,000 bales in 181 5. 

With the return of peace in 181 5 the new-born manufactur- 
ing industries were compelled to compete with the factories 
of Europe. England rushed into our markets with her wares 
as if to the attack of a fortress. In 181 5 she sent us goods 
to the amount of $83,000,000, and the next year she sent 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM 275 

nearly twice as much. These goods were sold without regard 

to cost. Often they were disposed of at auction. " It was 

well worth while," said a member of Parliament, " to incur 

a loss upon the first exportations, in order, by a glut, to stifle 

in the cradle those rising manufactures in the United States 

which the war had forced into existence, contrary to the 

natural course of things." 

Such fierce competition quickly brought our infant industry The 

almost to a standstill. Woolen and cotton mills closed down tive 

. r- r- Tariff 

and the manufacturers of iron put out their fires. Congress 

was asked to come to the relief of the manufacturers with 

a tariff that would protect our market against the flood of 

foreign importations, and the relief was given. In 1816 

Congress imposed a duty of 25 per cent, on woolen and cotton 

goods and also imposed protective duties upon hats, carriages, 

leather and its manufactures, rolled and hammered iron, paper, 

and sugar. Thus the War of 1812 led to the upbuilding of 

American manufacturing and to the adoption of the policy 

of protecting those manufactures by the imposition of a high 

tariff. 

The chief political effect of the War of 181 2 was the com- The 

^ . Hart- 

plete destruction of the moribund Federalist party. The ford 

Conven- 
immediate agency of the Federalist collapse was the Hartford uon 

Convention. This body, consisting of twenty-six delegates 
from the five New England States, met at Hartford near the 
close of the war for the purpose of giving a voice to the dis- 
content of New England in regard to the progress of the war. 
After a long discussion behind closed doors the Convention 
adjourned (January 1815), having placed itself on record as 
favoring the doctrines enunciated in the Kentucky Resolu- 
tions (p. 241). In its report the Convention strongly hinted 
that the time might come when the States would be justified 
in withdrawing from the Union. Thus it was becoming the 
fashion to resort to the threat of secession whenever the meas- 
ures of the federal government conflicted with the interests of 
a section. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts made (in 1812) 
such a threat on the floor of the House of Representatives 



276 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

when opposing the admission of Louisiana into the l^nion. 
" It is my deliberate opinit)n, " said (Juincy, " tliat if this bill 
passes the bonds of the Union are virtually dissolved; that 
the Stales which compose it are free from their obligations ; 
and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of 
some, to prepare definitely for a separation • — ■ amicably if they 
can, violently if they must." The doctrine of nullification was 
espoused by the Hartford Convention as well as the doctrine 
of secession. " Acts of Congress in violation of the Con>ti- 
tution," said the report, " are absolutely void, and States that 
have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute 
their own decisions." A committee was sent by the Conven- 
tion to wait upon Congress and ask it for certain amendments 
to the Constitution, but by the time the committee reached 
Washington the war was over. So nothing was done by the 
committee and the work of the Convention came to naught. 
The But the meeting at Hartford raised a storm of disapproval 

Down- ° . ^ 

fau throughout the country, and since the members of the Con- 

Feder- veution were Federalists the h^ederalist i)arty had to sulifer 

alist . . . 

Party for what the Convention did. The unpoj)ulanty which the 

Convention brought upon the Federalist cause was more than 
the party could bear. " Not only did the Convention," says 
F. A. Walker, " destroy the Federalist party beyond all pos- 
sibility of resuscitation; but it proved to be the blighting of 
many a fair and promising career. Every man who took part 
in it was a marked man and so far as the utmost rage of the 
Republican party and press could go he was outcast and out- 
lawed politically." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The election of Madison: McMaster III, 314-317. 

2. The reign of faction : Babcock, 3-21. 

3. Frencli duplicity and English stubbornness : Babcock, 37-49. 

4. What were the English Orders in Council and Napoleon's Ber- 
lin and Milan Decrees? McMaster III, 249-251, 272-274, 292-293. 

5. What, according to John Quincy Adams, was the origin of the 
War of 1812? Halsey V, 3-10. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FRl'.l".nOM 277 

6. Clay's justification of the War of 1812: ll.iit III, 417 l-'o; ]<:iu- 
dolph's demniciation of tlic War: Harding. 173 njo. 

7. Defense : Forman, 249-255. 

8. Describe the burning of Washington consuliing an American and 
also a British account: Halsey V, 69-79. 

9. Foreign Commerce: Forman, 328-335. 

10. The Battle of New Orleans (Roosevelt): Halsey V, 102-112. 

11. What were the commercial and industrial effects of the War of 
1812? Hart HI, 430-433; Coman, 175-206. 

12. Dates for the chronological tables: 1812, 1814, 1815. 

13. Why did the British government refuse to ratify Erskine's 
treaty? Read in the class "The Star Spangled Banner" and relate 
the circumstances of its writing. Give an account of Jackson's de- 
feat of the Creek Indians. Why did manufacturing flourish in New 
England? In what way did the War of 1812 affect the Westward 
Movement? Describe fully the battle between the Constitution and the 
Guerricre. Read in the class " Old Ironsides." Summarize the chief 
events connected with the struggle for commercial freedom (1801- 
1817). 

14. Special Reading. Henry Adams, History of the United States, 
Vols. V to X. Gaillard Hunt, Life of James Madison. Theodore 
Roosevelt, The Naral JJ'ar of 1812. James Schouler, History of the 
United States, Vol. XL 



XXVI 

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT (1800-1820) 

While Jefferson and Madison were asserting our rights as a nation 
and achieving our commercial independence, the great work of winning 
the West did not cease for a single day. During the hard times of the 
Embargo and the War of 1812 the stream of western migration flowed 
faster than ever. Between 1800 and 1820 the population of the West 
and Southwest increased nearly 2,000,000, and nearly half a million 
square miles of territory were rescued from savages and wild beasts 
and brought under the influence of American civilization. How was 
this stupendous task achieved? What was the story of the Westward 
Movement between 1800 and 1820? 

91. THE LAND POLICY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

The The wave of civilization which we saw (p. 249) moving 

Land westward so rapidly at the close of the eighteen century began 

to move even more rapidly during the opening years of the 
nineteenth century. The acceleration was due chiefly to the 
liberal policy of the national government in respect to the sale 
of public lands. At first Congress regarded the public domain 
much as a landlord regards a private estate : it was a possession 
which was to be exploited solely with a view to revenue and 
was to be sold for its full money value. Accordingly, the 
early policy of Congress was to sell only in very large tracts 
and at the highest possible price. Under the system nobody 
but the rich could buy. 
Cheap It was not long, however, before Congress began to regard 

Lands the public doinain as a national possession to be exploited not 
so much for the benefit of the national treasury as for the 
benefit of all the people. Accordingly, in 1800, Congress, 
changing its policy, passed a law which made it much easier 
to secure a portion of the public land. Under this law a per- 
son could purchase a half-section of land — 320 acres — at 

278 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 279 

$2.00 per acre and pay for it in four yearly instalments. In 
1820 Congress carried its liberal policy even further; it re- 
duced the price to $1.25 per acre and provided that lots as 
small as 80 acres could be purchased. Under the workings 
of this beneficent law of 1820 almost anybody, even the poor- 
est, could become the owner of a little farm. 

The national government in 1810 had for sale more than The 

* _ .... Influence 

150,000,000 acres of good tillable land east of the Mississippi, °f 
and west of that river it had countless millions of acres more, ^^nd 
Here was the secret not only of the strength and swiftness of 
the Westward Movement, but also of the strength and p»-os- 
perity of the American nation during its formative period. 
The almost inexhaustible supply of public land at a nominal 
price made us from the beginning a nation of landholders. 
" The pride and delight of Americans," said Harriet Mar- 
tineau, " is the quantity of land. The possession of land is 
the aim of all actions, generally speaking, and the cure for all 
social evils among men in the United States. If a man is 
disappointed in politics or love he goes and buys land. If he 
disgraces himself, he betakes himself to a lot in the West. If 
the demand for any article of manufacture slackens, the oper- 
atives drop into the unsettled lands. If a citizen's neighbors 
rise above him in the town he betakes himself where he can 
be monarch of all he surveys. An artisan works that he may 
die on land of his own. He is frugal that he may enable his 
son to be a landowner. Farmers' daughters go into factories 
that they may clear off the mortgages from their fathers' 
farms ; that they may be independent landowners again." 

92. ALONG THE OHIO RIVER: OHIO; INDIANA; ILLINOIS. 

The first fruits of the liberal land policy were seen in the ^j|*g 
region of the Old Northwest. We saw (p. 252) that a con- jji*^^ 
siderable portion of the country north of the Ohio was settled ^m^' 
before the close of the eighteenth century. After land was 
made cheap in 1800 settlers poured into the Old Northwest by 
the thousands and tens of thousands, filling it up as if by magic. 
The home-seekers came from all the old sections of the Union. 



28o 



ADVANCED AAIERICAN HISTORY 



Early 
Routes 
to the 
Old 
North- 
west 



CJreat nunihcrs canic from tlie South, especially from Virginia 
and North Carolina. Many also came from the North, from 
New l{ngland. New York, and Pennsylvania. The Southern 
stock, however, was for many years the preponderating class 
in the States north of the Ohio. But the Southerners who set- 
tled in the Old Northwest did not as a rule belong to the aris- 
tocratic, slaveholding class, because slavery, by the Ordinance 
of 1787, was excluded from this region. 

The journey to the northwestern wilderness — for in 1800 
except for a fringe of settlement along the Ohio River the 
Northwest Territory was still a wilderness — was made along 
several well-defined routes. New Englanders made their way 




By permisMcn of The Railway World 

Conestoga wagon transportation. 



up to the Mohawk Valley and along the Genesee turnpike to 
Lake Erie. But all the New England home-seekers did not 
push on to the West. Many reniained on the lands between 
the sources of the Mohawk and Lake Erie, where they cleared 
forests, erected mills, built towns, and laid the foundations of 
Western New York. Settlers from Pennsylvania followed the 
old Forbes road, which, during the French and Indian wars, 
had been cut from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.^ At this flour- 

1 John Mellish, who visited Pittsburgh about 1818, tells us that the town had 
767 buildings, a steam-mill that could grind 500 bushels of grain in a day, 4 glass 
factories, several breweries and distilleries,, two cotton manufactories, a wire mill, 
and an iron mill. The population of Pittsburgh at this time was nearly 5,000. 



THE W ESI' WARD MOVEiMENT 



281 



isliin^ gateway to the West, the jMoneer {ilaced his goods on 
a flathf>at and made his way l)y wattT to the place where he 
wished to settle, i'ioiieers starting out from l^)altimore fol- 
lowed a turnpike to t 'uml)erland, where they struck out across 
the mountains, going either to Pittsburgh or to Wheeling. 
From the region further south the journey to the Ohio coun- 
try was made by way of the Cumberland Gap along Boone's 




Routes to the West during the Turnpike Era (1800-1825). 



Wilderness Road (p. 145), or along the Ohio River, or along 
the Kanawha to the Ohio. But whatever route the pioneer 
took he found the journey long, toilsome, and beset with diffi- 
culties and dangers. 

The conditions of this migration to the Northwest Terri- Condi- 
tory were described by a traveler (Imlay) as follows: "If Trans- 
the emigrant has a family or goods of any sort to remove tion 
his best way would be to purchase a wagon and team of horses. 
The wagon may be covered with canvas, and if it is the 



282 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

choice of the people they may sleep in it at nights with the 
greatest safety. But if they should dislike that, there are 
inns of accommodation the whole, distance on the different 
roads. The provisions of the family I would purchase of 
the farmers as you pass along, and by having two or three 
camp kettles and stopping every evening when the weather is 
fine upon the brink of some rivulet and by kindling a fire they 
may soon dress their food. The best way is to convey their 
tea and coffee from the place they may set out at. The dis- 
tance which one of those wagons may travel in one day is 
little short of twenty miles. So that it will be a journey 
from Alexandria (in Virginia) to Redstone Old Fort (on 
the Monongahela River) of eleven or twelve days, and from 
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, it would require nearly twenty 
days." 

Ohio The first State to be carved out of the Northwest Territory 

was Ohio. In 1802 Congress passed a law enabling the people 
of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio (p. 252) to frame 
a constitution for the government of the proposed State. 
This was done, and in 1803, after the constitution had been 
accepted by Congress the Territory was admitted as the State 
of Ohio. 

Indiana From Ohio the wave of settlement passed on to the Indiana 

Territory (p. 252). Here there was trouble with the Indians, 
just as there had been in Ohio (p. 251). Under the leader- 
ship of Tecumseh the redskins in 181 1 were plotting to drive 



^ 



Indianapolis in 1825. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 283 

all the whites out of Indiana. But General William Henry 
Harrison turned the tables upon the conspirators. Meeting 
the Indians in battle at Tippecanoe (November 7, 181 1), he 
defeated them with great slaughter. After this battle the 
Indians gave the settlers but little trouble. Land-seekers now 
rushed into Indiana in such great numbers that by 181 5 the 
Territory contained a population large enough for statehood. 
In 1 8 16 a constitutional convention met at Cory don, then 
the capital ^ of the Territory, and framed a State constitution. 
This was accepted by Congress and Indiana was admitted as 
a State (1816). 

By the time Indiana was admitted as a State, her neighbor Illinois 
on the west was also preparing to enter the Union. In 1809 
Indiana and Illinois were separated, the latter being made a 
territory with the old French town of Kaskaskia as the capi- 
tal. In the conditions of their growth and settlement Indiana 
and Illinois were twin sisters. Both had to deal with the 
Indians, although in Illinois the redmen gave little trouble after 
the battle of Tippecanoe." Both had to deal with the slavery 
question, for in the old French settlement of Indiana and Illi- "^^^ 
nois slaves were still held in spite of the Ordinance of 1787. Question 
Moreover, slaveholders from the South often brought their 
slaves up into Indiana and Illinois. As a result there was in 
these two Territories a strong sentiment in favor of slavery. 
Yet there was also a strong anti-slavery sentiment, for in the 
northern sections of Indiana and Illinois there were settlers 
from New England and New York. These people resisted the 
efforts that were made to legalize slavery in Illinois, and in 
their opposition were assisted by Congress, which demanded a 
compliance with the terms of the Ordinance of 1787 (p. 209). 
So, Illinois came into the Union (t8i8) as a free State, just 
as Ohio and Indiana had come in as free States. 

About the time Illinois was made a State the great national The 
turnpike from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, then in Eoad 

1 Indianapolis became the capital of Indiana in 1824. 

2 During the War of 1812 at Fort Dearborn on the present site of Chicago 
there was a terrible massacre of white men. Not only the soldierai- but many- 
women and children were killed or taken captive. 



284 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Steam- 
boat 



\ irginia, was completed. The huildiiif;- of this ruacl was begun 
in i8ii and by 1818 mail coaches were running between Wash- 
ington, D. C, and Wheeling. The road was built at the ex- 
pense of the national government, nearly $7,000,000 in all 
being spent on its construction. But it was worth many 
times its cost, for it proved a powerful factor in the develop- 
ment of the West, Immediately upon the completion of this 
highway great streams of traffic began to move over it. Pas- 
senger coaches rushed along its smooth surface at the rate of 
ten miles an hour, and freight wagons drawn by twelve horses 




Along the Ohio River: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. 

carried loads that sometimes weighed as much as 20,000 
pounds. 

Another event that quickened the growth of the Northwest 
was the appearance of the steamboat u])on western rivers. 
The first really successful steamboat was built by Robert Ful- 
ton, whose Clermont in 1807 made a trip on the Hudson River 
from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours and returned 
in thirty hours. Four years later the first steamboat was 
built on the Ohio, and by 1820 this new kind of craft was 
becoming a familiar object on all the western rivers. 

Thus between 1800 and 1820 everything was favorable to 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 285 

the development of the Old Northwest, and the growth of Growth 
this region in wealth and population was wonderful. In Ohio, oid 

North- 
in Indiana, in Illinois, forests and swamps disappeared and west 

in their places there appeared smiling fields of wheat and 
corn. Population grew at a startling rate. In 1800 the popu- 
lation of the entire Northwest was only a little more than 
50,000. fjy 1820 the comhined population of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois was nearly 900,000. At the time of its admission 
in 1803 the population of Ohio was in the neighborhood of 
50,000; seventeen years later the figure had jumped to nearly 
600,000, and Ohio was more populous than Massachusetts. 

93. AROUND THE GULF OF MEXICO: LOUISIANA; MISSIS- 
SIPPI; ALABAMA; FLORIDA. 

There were cheap lands in the Southwest as well as in the 
Northwest ; while a kingdom of wheat and corn was rising in 
the country north of the Ohio, there was rising in the South- 
west a kingdom of cotton and sugar. " By the side of the pic- 
ture of the advance of the pioneer farmer bearing his house- 
hold goods on his covered wagon to his new home across the 
Ohio must be placed the picture of the Southern planter 
crossing through the forests of western Georgia, Alabama, and 
Mississippi in his family carriage . . . with servants, packs 
of hunting dogs, and a train of slaves." (Turner.) 

The story of the development of the Southwest region be- The 

eins with Louisiana at the time it was purchased from France tpryof 
° ' Orleanf 

(p. 260). Congress placed the government of the new ac- 
quisition in the hands of President Jefiferson, who turned it 
over to his friend, William Claiborne, to be governed as he 
thought best until a regular form of government should be 
provided. Claiborne met the French officials in New Orleans 
on December 17, 1803, and took formal possession of Loui- 
siana. At first Claiborne could govern with despotic power, 
for he was governor, lawmaker, and judge. But Congress soon 
gave the people of Louisiana a better form of government. In 
1804 it divided the great purchase into two parts. The part 
south of the 33rd parallel of latitude (the present State of 



286 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Louisiana) was given a separate territorial government and 

was called The Territory of Orleans. The heart of Orleans 

was New Orleans, a city of perhaps 8,cmdo inhabitants. The 

part of the purcliase north of the 33rd parallel of latitude, the 

wild and almost uninhabitable region that stretched northward 

toward Canada and that lay between the Mississippi River and 

the Rocky Mountains, was given to the Territory of Indiana 

to be governed and was called the District of Louisiana. The 

largest settlement in all this northern district was St. Louis, 

at that time only a little fur-trading village. 

Loui- After Orleans was brought under American rule it flourished 

liana '^ 

as never before. Planters moved down from the older States 
with their slaves and brought under control the rich sugar 
and cotton lands of the lower Mississippi. New Orleans in 
a very few years became a city with a population of 25,000 
souls. So rapidly did Orleans grow that by 18 12 it had the 
number of people usually required for Statehood. In that 
year it entered the Union as the State of Louisiana, the first 
State carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. 

Missis- While planters were moving down into Louisiana pioneers 

were also entering the Mississippi Territory (p. 250) which, 
by 18 10, had come to include what are now the two States 
of Mississippi and Alabama. Louisiana in its development 
had the advantage of an old French civilization upon which 
it could build, but the Mississippi country at the opening 
of the nineteenth century was almost as wild and as deso- 
late as it was in the days of De Soto. After the defeat 
of the Creek Indians by Jackson, however, settlers poured 
into Mississippi so fast that by 1816 the population of 
the Territory was 75,000. Application was made for admis- 
sion into the Union and this was granted, but a division of the 
Territory was made, the dividing line extending from the 
mouth of Bear Creek southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The 
part west of the line was called Mississippi and in 1817 was 
admitted into the L'^^nion with Natchez as its capital. The part 

Ala- east of the dividing line was set off as Alabama Territory. 

But planters were spreading over Alabama as well as over 



sippi 



bama 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 



287 



Mississippi with the result that within two years Alabama 
Territory had a population large enough for Statehood. So 
in 1819 Alabama joined the Union, its first capital being Hunts- 
ville, although Mobile was the largest town in the State. 

By the time Alabama was settled and admitted we had Florida 
secured a treaty providing for the acquisition of Florida. The 
United States having claimed from the beginning that West 




Around the Gulf of Mexico. 



Florida was a part of the Louisiana Purchase (p. 261), Madi- 
son in 1810 directed the Governor of Orleans Territory to 
take possession of the district between the Mississippi and the 
Perdido River and govern it as a part of his own Territory. 
Spain protested, but was too weak to offer effective resistance ; 
West Florida passed into our possession. But we also coveted 
the great peninsula of East Florida, and we were not long in 
securing it. The Seminole Indians of Florida furnished a 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Slavery 
and 
Cotton 
Culture 



reason for decisive action on the i)art of the United States. 
Tliese wandering savages would rush up into Georgia, destroy 
property and human lives, and then return to their hiding- 
places in Florida. In 1817 Andrew Jackson was sent against 
the Seminoles and they were severely punished. After re- 
ducing the Indians, he took virtual possession of IHorida. 
Spain was informed that she nnist either place a force in 
Florida sufficient to govern the peninsula in a projjcr manner 
or " cede to the United States a province of which she re- 
tained nothing but the nominal possession." As Spain was 
again powerless to resist, she formally ceded (in i8i<j) both 
East and West Florida to the United States for a i)ayment of 
about $5,000,000. Thus all claims of Spain to territory east 
of the Mississippi were extinguished. In 1822 Florida was 
created a territory with Andrew Jackson as its first governor.^ 
Thus by 1822 three great States and an organized Territory 
had emerged from the wilderness which encircled the Gulf 
of Mexico. The stimulus for this development was the de- 
mand for cotton which became greater and greater after the 
industrial revolution (p. 247). Nowhere could cotton be cul- 
tivated with more profit than in the rich lands around tlie 
Gulf. .So, slaves in great numbers were brought down to the 
pioneer plantations in the Gulf States. From ten to fifteen 
thousand were brought down every year from Delaware, Mary- 
land, and Virginia. Between 1810 and 1820 Mississippi dou- 
bled the number of her slaves, while Alabama's increase was 
even greater. In 1810 the (iulf Region produced 5,000,000 
pounds of cotton ; in 1820, 60,000,000. By 1820 slavery in the 
Gulf States was the mainstay of industry and the cultivation 
of cotton was the chief reliance of the farmer. 



1 By the treaty which gave us Florida it was agreed that the western boundary 
of Louisiana — a boundary that had been left in doubt by the treaty of cession 
of 1803 — should be the Sabine River from the Gulf of Mexico to the thirty-second 
parallel, then a north line to the Red River; westward along this river to the 
looth meridian; then northward to the Arkansas River and westward to its 
source in the Rocky Mountains, then a north line to the forty-second parallel. 
North of the forty-second parallel between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific 
was the Oregon country. Si)ain had claimed the Oregon country, but by the 
Treaty of 1819 she relinquished her claims. .. .. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 289 

94. ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI: MISSOURI. 
The pioneer in his westward advance did not stop at the The 

■»T''--T- irT-' • Lewis 

Mississippi. Even before Louisiana came into our possession and 

• 1 • • • , T.^- Clark 

Americans were beginning to move over into the trans-Mis- Expedi 
sissippi country, and Jefferson was planning to have that wild 
region explored. In 1803, several months before the actual 
Louisiana cession, he secured from Congress an appropriation 
of $2500 to pay the expenses of an expedition to Oregon. 
This expedition was placed in charge of Meriwether Lewis 
and William Clark who. leaving St. Louis in May 1804, fol- 
lowed the Missouri to its far-ofif source in the Bitter Root 
Mountains. Then they traveled by land until they came to 
the head water 5 of a stream which took them to the mouth 
of the Columbia River. They had now done what many other 
travelers had attempted without success : they had reached 
the Pacific Ocean by traveling westward across the country 
which is now the LInited States.^ 

The expedition of Lewis and Clark opened up the fur-trade The 
in the region beyond the Mississippi. The hunter and trapper uade 
followed the path blazed by the explorer and in a few years 
trading-posts began to appear along the route. The fur-trade 
was soon extended even into the far-off Oregon' country. 
Here the American trappers came into collision with British 
trappers and the question of the ownership of the Oregon 
country arose. The United States claimed Oregon through claims 
the right of discovery, for in 1792 Captain Robert Gray of Oregon 
Boston had entered the mouth of the Columbia River in a try 
trading vessel ; and Jefferson further claimed Oregon for the 
United States because he thought it was a part of the Louisiana 
Purchase. Spain, on the other hand, claimed it on the ground 
that she was the original owner of all territory west of the 
Rocky Mountains. Great Britain at this time, without claim- 
ing full possession of the country, asserted the right to fish in 

1 Tn 1806 Zebulon Pike with a few soldiers explored the Louisiana country 
Inward the southwest, ascending the Missouri and Osage into Kansas and pro- 
ceeding south to the Arkansas which they followed until they came to Pueblo, 
Colorado, where Pike gave his name to one of the highest peaks of the Rockies, 



sgo 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Missouri 



the waters of Oregon and to trade with the natives ; for this 
right had been accorded to her by Spain, In order to settle 
this claim for a time, at least, England and the United States 
in 1818 entered into a scheme for a joint occupation of the 
Oregon country, the agreement being that either country could 
bring the joint occupation to an end by giving the other coun- 
try a year's notice. In the following year Spain by treaty 
relinquished all claims (p. 288) above the 42° parallel. Thus 
the claims upon the Oregon country were temporarily set- 
tled. 

Planters quickly followed the fur-traders across the Mis- 
sissippi and laid the foundations of Missouri. The planters 
from the South brought their slaves with 
Addfed ] ' 5/ them. A traveler (Flint) has drawn a pic- 
ture of the pioneer planter moving with his 
slaves into Missouri : " The cattle with 
si.charies^ their hundred bells ; the negroes with de- 
GeneviVveV ^^K^^ ^^ thcif couutenanccs, for their 
labors were suspended and their 
imaginations excited; the mis- 
tress and children strolling care- 
lessly along in a gait that enables them 
to keep up with the slow-traveling car- 
riage. Just before nightfall they come to a spring or a branch 
where there is water and wood. The pack of dogs set up a 
cheerful barking. The cattle lie down and ruminate. The team 
is unharnessed. The large wagons are covered so that the roof 
completely excludes the rain. The cooking utensils are 
brought out. The blacks prepare a supper which the toils of 
the day render delicious ; and they talk over the adventures 
of the past day and prospects of the next. Meantime they 
are going where there is nothing but buffaloes, to limit their 
range, even to the western sea." Settlers entered Missouri 
from almost every direction, for it could be reached by all the 
rivers of the Mississippi Valley. But early Missouri was in 
the main an overflow from the South, the emigration from 
North Carolina and Tennessee being especially large. Un- 




Kissouri 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 291 

der such favorable conditions the settlement of Missouri was 
bound to proceed at a rapid rate. In 1810 the population of 
Missouri (then Louisiana)^ Territory was 20,000; ten years 
later it was 70,000. Missouri was now ready for Statehood, 
and accordingly was admitted into the Union in 1821." 




Emigration to the West. 

95. THE STAGES OF FRONTIER DEVELOPMENT: 
FRONTIER LIFE. 

We have now seen that by 1820 the Frontier Line had been The 
pushed far out into the country beyond the Mississippi. An Farmer 
excellent account of the manner in which the western advance 
was made is given in Peck's Nezv Guide to the West: 
" Generally, in all the western settlements, three classes, like 
waves of the ocean, have rolled, one after the other. First 
comes the pioneer who depends for the subsistence of his fam- 
ily chiefly upon the natural growth of the vegetation called 
the ' range ' and the proceeds of hunting. His implements 
of agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his 
efforts are directed mainly to a crop of corn and a turnip 
patch. A field of a dozen acres is enough for his occu- 

1 The District of Louisiana (p. 286) in 1805 became the Territory of Louisiana. 
In 1812 the name of Louisiana Territory was changed to Missouri Territory. 

2 The subject of the admission of Missouri gave rise to a great debate in 
Congress, an account of which is given in the next chapter. 



292 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Final 
Land- 
holding 



The 
Capitalist 



Effect 
of 

Frontier 
Life 



pancy. It is quite immaterial whether he ever becomes the 
owner of the soil. He is an occupant for the time being, pays 
no rent, and feels as independent as the ' lord of the manor.' 
He builds his cabin, gathering around him a few other families 
of similar tastes and habits and ' settles ' till the range is some- 
what subdued and hunting a little precarious. 

" The next class purchase the land, add field to field, clear 
out the roads, throw rough bridges over the streams, put up 
hewn-log houses with glass windows and brick and stone 
chimneys, occasionally plant orchards, build mills, school- 
houses, court-houses, etc., and exhibit the picture and forms 
of plain, frugal, civilized life. 

'' Another wave rolls on. The men of capital and enter- 
prise come. The small village rises to a spacious town or city ; 
substantial edifices of brick, extensive fields, orchards, gardens, 
colleges, churches are seen. Broadcloths, silks, and all the 
refinements, luxuries, elegances, frivolities, and fashions are 
in vogue. Thus wave after wave is rolling westward : the 
real Eldorado is still further on." 

While the pioneer was making these wonderful changes upon 
the face of nature, the frontier in turn was making profound 
changes in the pioneer himself. While struggling with the 

harsh and raw conditions 
of a savage environment 
the settler himself grew to 
be harsh and raw. Rut 
while men of the early 
West were losing some of 
the graces and refinements 
of civilized life they w^ere 
at the same time acquir- 
ing traits of character that 
have been of vast importance in the upbuilding of the Ameri- 
can nation. For one thing, life on the frontier was entirely 
favorable to the growth of a strong individuality. The pioneer 
led a lonely existence. Sometimes his nearest neighbor lived 
twenty miles away. In this isolation he was not com- 




pioneer's cabin. 

"rom an old jiiint. 



THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 293 

pelled to jostle elbows with his fellow-men, no glare of 
publicity beat upon his actions, no public opinion stifled his 
judgments. He was free to live his own life, think his own 
thoughts, and work out his own salvation. Such a man was 
pretty sure to be self-centered and self-assertive, as well as 
self-reliant. Then frontier life fostered the spirit of democ- 
racy. There was no distinction in rank or wealth, and this 
created that equality which is the essence of democracy. 
Every man was an individual who counted one, but no man 
counted more than one. The frontiersman was perforce a 

democrat: he believed that every man should have a vote and Democ- 

. . . racy 

that the majority should rule. Hence, m the organization 

of the frontier States the principle of democracy was quite fully 
recognized. Vermont • — • for it, too, was a frontier State at 
the time of its admission — Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois all pro- 
vided for complete manhood suffrage in their first constitu- 
tions, while the new States of the South gave the suffrage to 
all adult male whites. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Westward migration and internal improvements : Babcock, 243- 
258. 

2. Transportation (1800-1820) : McMaster III, 460-490; Turner, 
81-83, 2^^, 287. 

3. The Steamboat : Forman, Useful Inventions, 201-209. 

4. Fulton's steamboat: Halsey IV, 186-196; AIcMaster III, 487-491. 

5. Down the Ohio in 1808: Halsey IV, 197-200. 

6. Steamboat travel on inland waters. Halsey VI, 17-19. 

7. Settlement of the western country: Hart II, 387-392. 

8. Dates for the chronological table: 1803, 1807, 1812. 

9. To be added to the table of admitted States : Ohio, Louisiana, 
Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama,, Maine, Missouri. 

10. Special Reading. Rufus King, Ohio, First Fruits of the Ordi- 
nance of 178J. Julia H. Levering, Historic Indiana. Randall Parrish, 
Historic Illinois. Ripley Hitchcock, The Louisiana Purchase. Albert 
Phelps, Louisiana. Lucien Carr, Missouri. H. M. Chittenden, Tlie 
Fur Trade of the Far West. A. Mathews, Ohio and Her IVestern 
Reserves. 



XXVII 

AN ERA OF COOD FEELING (1817-1825) 

After the Federalist party had collapsed and after the War of 
1812 had settled most of the questions which had kept the people 
divided, party politics fell into a stagnant condition. Between 1817 
and 1825 party spirit ran so low and affairs generally wore so peace- 
ful an aspect that the period was called the Era of Good Feeling. 
During this period of outward calm there arose in the field of 
national politics several of the most momentous and difficult ques- 
tions with which the American people have had to deal. It was 
during the Era of Good Feeling that statesmen were brought face 
to face with a most important phase of the slavery problem, a most 
important phase of international policy, and a most important phase 
of the tariff question. 

96. THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 

Mon- Madison was succeeded in the Presidency by James IMon- 

Tour roe, who belonged to the group of great Virginians who stood 

so long at the head of national affairs. Soon after his in- 
auguration, March 4, 1817, Monroe made a tour of the 
country, traveling through New England, New York, and 
pushing west as far as Detroit. Wherever he went he was 
received with the greatest cordiality and respect. In New 
England, where the Federalist spirit still slumbered and where 
a Democratic President might well have expected a cold 
reception, his welcome was especially warm and enthusiastic. 
In Boston all the inhabitants from school children to the high- 
est officials seemed determined to do their utmost to entertain 
the President. 
The The universal outburst of good feeling which greeted Mon- 

of^* roe was due to the fact that by the time he made his tour 

aiity°°' the United States had indeed become a nation. It was not 

294 




AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 295 

James Monroe, the man, upon whom the people bestowed so 
much honor, but James Monroe, the President of the United 
States. Many things had worked together to produce this 
feehng of nationahty. In the first place the people of the 
different States had by 1817 grown accustomed to the pres- 
ence and the power of a national 
government. For nearly thirty 
years they had been living under a 
national flag, had been using a na- 
tional currency, and had been 
obeying national laws. The War 
of 1812, too, had come " with its 
hopes and its fears, with its tri- 
umphs and its reverses, to create 
the deep instructive feeling of com- 
mon interest and a common des- 
tiny." Then the measures of the 
Democratic party had done much j^^^^^ Monroe, 

to strengthen the ties of nation- 
ality. Although this party was organized to fight for the 
rights of the States and to oppose any encroachment of 
the national government, nevertheless when it was once in 
power it did many things to broaden the scope of the Consti- 
tution and to build up the power of the national government. 
It acquired Louisiana, an act which Jefferson himself re- 
garded as unconstitutional; it established (in 1816) a national 
bank (the second Bank of the United States) ; it created a 
national debt; and it enacted (iri 1816) a tariff law that was 
distinctly protective in its aim. 

Another powerful agency in promoting the growth of na- The 

,. , . , . , , . , Decisions 

tionality durmg the openmg years of the nmeteenth century of the 

was a series of remarkable decisions handed down by the Su- court 
preme Court of the United States. These decisions were ren- 
dered in most cases by John Marshall, who for thirty-four 
years was the Chief Justice of our great national tribunal. 
Marshall took the ground that the national government is 
free to exercise any implied power which may be necessary 



zgCi 



y\DVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Mccul- 
loch vs. 
Mary- 
land 



Marbury 

vs. 

Madison 



Cohens 

vs. 

Virginia 



Gibbons 

vs. 

Ogden 



for the execuiioti of an expressed power of the Constitution. 
" Let the end," he said in the case of McCiilloch z's. Mary- 
land, " he legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Consti- 
tution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly 
adapted to that end . . . are constitutional."' This doctrine 
of implied power was in complete accordance with the broad 
views of Hamilton (p. 231), and its immediate tendency was 
to exalt and strengthen the national government. In the case 
of Marbury vs. Madison, Marshall decided (in 1803) that the 
Supreme Court of the United States could set aside and ren- 
der null and void a law of Congress if such law seemed to 
the Court to be contrary to the Constitution. In Cohens vs. 
Jlrcfinia, Marshall applied the same rule to the decisions of 
State courts and the laws of State legislatures, holding that 
such decisions or such laws were without validity if they 
were found by the Supreme Court of the United States to be 
contrary to the national Constitu- 
tion. Here was a tremendous con- 
centration of power, for the rule 
gave to one department of the na- 
tional government (the judicial 
department) the power to veto ab- 
solutely any law, whether State or 
national, if the law in question 
seemed to the Supreme Court to 
be unconstitutional. Another far- 
reaching decision of Marshall's 
was in the case of Gibbons vs. Og- 
den, where the court entered into 
the meaning of the word " com- 
merce," and laid down the principles of the law in regard to the 
regulation of interstate commerce (47). In this decision 
the power of Congress over interstate commerce was declared 
to be full and complete, extending not only to the commodities 
exchanged and to the agencies of transportation, but to the 
movements of persons as well. Marshall was bitterly at- 
tacked by Jefferson and by others who were opposed to a 




Copr. l>y ThMiiias JIarsliall Smith 

John Marshall. 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 297 

centralized government, but the great jurist did not waver in 
his course. In decision after decision he continued to assert 
the power of the national government and to uphold the su- 
premacy of the Constitution. At the same time he raised the 
Supreme Court from a position of relative insignificance 
(p. 226) to one of great influence and power. 

97. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

The first question to disturb the public mind during the The 
Era of Good Feeling was one which related to slavery. While madge 

. . . . Amend- 

the bill for the admission of Missouri (p. 291) was on its ment 
passage through the House, James Tallmadge of New York 
proposed (Feb. 13, 1819) an amendment which provided that 
further introduction of slavery in the new States should be 
prohibited and that all children born within the State after ad- 
mission should be free at the age of twenty-five years. The 
House passed the amendment, but the Senate refused to accept 
it. As it was now late in the session Congress adjourned with- 
out action in regard to Missouri. 

The question raised by the Tallmadge amendment was this : views 

as to the 

Was the area of slavery to be extended? or was slavery to Extension 
be confined within the States where it already existed ? ^ It Slavery 
was a question of the highest importance, and it was discussed 
freely in all parts of the Union. In the North public senti- 
ment was strongly opposed to the spread of slavery into the 
Territories. The North had its face turned to the West, and 
it did not enjoy the prospect of the western country being 
given over to slavery ; accustomed to a system of free labor, 
it believed that freemen would not work side by side with 
slaves. But the South, too, had its face toward the West. 
Southern planters were already crossing the Mississippi with 
their slaves and they did not wish the extension of slavery to 
be checked. The South, accustomed to a system of slave 
labor, believed that its prosperity depended upon the free 

1 The slave States at this time were Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North 
1 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, 
and Alabama — eleven in all. In the other eleven States slavery was not allowed. 



298 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

extension of the slave area. More than this, the South de- 
nied the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory 
or to make the prohibition of slavery a condition upon which 
a State might enter the Union. It was the Southern view that 
slavery was a matter with which Congress had nothing what- 
ever to do (p. 245). Hence the South bitterly opposed the 
Tallmadge amendment. 
Debate When Congress met in December 18 10, the admission of 

and tne ° -^ 

compro- Missouri became the overshadowing issue of the session. But 

mise ... 

the Missouri question was soon coupled with the question of 

admitting the District of Maine as a State. The House 
passed a bill admitting Maine, but when the bill came to the 
Senate that body voted to admit Maine ^ provided Missouri 
was at the same time admitted as a slave State. The House 
at first refused to comply with this arrangement and a lively 
and acrimonious debate followed. The Northern leaders de- 
manded the Tallmadge amendment, contending that Congress 
had the power to admit States under any conditions 
that it might choose to impose. Southern members flatly de- 
nied such a right, contending that if Congress could impose 
conditions upon a State entering the Union it could " squeeze 
a new-born sovereign State to the size of a pigmy." The 
angry debate, which threatened to be interminable, was at last 
brought to an end by a compromise : it was agreed to admit 
Missouri as a slave State and Maine as a free State, while in 
all the rest of the territory possessed by the United States 
west of the Mississippi and north of the parallel of 36° 30' 
slavery was to be forever prohibited. The compromise meas- 
ure was passed (March 1820) and sent to Monroe, who 
signed it with great reluctance. 

At the time of the Missouri Compromise the Mason and 
Dixon's Line (p. 83) and the Ohio River were regarded as 
the line that separated freedom and slavery. So the drawing 

1 Maine remained a part of Massachusetts (p. 68) until 1819 when she was 
given permission by the latter Stale to form a government of her own if her 
people desired to do so. The sentiment was in favor of a separation and Maine 
(in 1820) applied for admission into the Union. 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 



299 



of parallel 36° 30' as the boundary line between slave terri- The 
tory and free territory was only extending westward a line ing 
of demarcation that already existed. Furthermore, in bring- Free 
ing Maine in as a free State to offset Missouri as a slave and 

. . . Slave 

State, Congress was only following a well-established policy states 
of preserving a balance between the North and the South. 
The admission of Kentucky as a slave State had been an offset 
to Vermont as a free State : Ohio had been an offset to Ten- 
nessee ; Indiana to Mississippi ; Illinois to Alabama. This bal- 




The result of the Missouri Compromise. 



ancing of free States against slave States had been attended 
to so carefully that with the admission of Maine and Mis- 
souri the equilibrium was perfect : there were exactly twelve 
free States and twelve slave States. As long as this nice 
balance could be preserved — and it was preserved for more 
than half a century — the North and the South would be 
equally divided in the Senate, and it would therefore be ex- 
tremely difficult to pass a measure that was displeasing to 
either section. 



300 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Effect 
of the 
Compro- 
mise 



The 

Compro- 
mise 
the Be- 
ginning 
of a Great 
Struggle 



The ^lissouri Compromise satisfied neither the North nor 
the South. It was on its face a Southern measure and the 
immediate advantage was with the South, for it gave that 
section an additional slave State at once, wdiilc another (Ar- 
kansas) would almost certainly be admitted in a very short 
time. Yet in the end the South lost by the Compromise, for 
south of 36° 30' there was room for only two or three States, 
while north of the line there was room for seven or eight : 
and according to the strict terms of the Compromise, there 
might oe free States even south of the line. 

Many men ventured the hojie that the Missouri Compro- 
mise would settle the slavery question for all time ; but far- 
sighted men indulged in no such illusions, for they saw that 
the Missouri question was only one phase of the slavery ques- 
tion, only the beginning of a prolonged struggle between the 
North and the South. " You have kindled a fire," said Cobb 
of Georgia in reference to the debate on the Compromise, 
" You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean 
cannot ]uit out, which only seas of blood can extinguish." The 
aged Jefferson with remarkable prescience foresaw the trou- 
ble that was ahead. " This momentous question," he said, 
" like a fire bell in the night, awakened me and filled me with 
terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. 
It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this as a re- 
prieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line co- 
inciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once 
conceived and held up to the angry passions of men will never 
be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper 
and deeper." John Quincy Adams saw in the Missouri ques- 
tion the " title page to a great tragic volume." 



The 

Advance 

of 

Russia 



98. THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Throughout both terms ^ of his administration Monroe was 
kept busv with foreign affairs. No sooner had the southern 
boundary of Oregon been settled (p. 290) than trouble arose 



1 In 1820 Monroe was reelected, receiving 231 of the 232 electoral votes. 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 301 

in regard to its northern boundary. Russia during the latter 
half of the eighteenth century had secured a firm foothold 
in Alaska and early in the nineteenth century she was extend- 
ing her power along the Pacific, moving further and further 
southward. By 1812 she had advanced down the coast as 
far as California, where she built a fort. In 1821 the Rus- 
sian Czar issued a ukase asserting Russia's right to territory 
along the Pacific coast as far south as the fifty-first parallel 
and forbidding the vessels of other powers to approach within 
one hundred miles of the territory claimed. This was an 
encroachment upon the Oregon country, which at the time 
(p. 290) was held in joint occupation by Great Britain and 
the United States. Both these countries promptly protested 
against the imperial ukase. The government at Washington 
declared its dissent in the strongest terms. It informed the 
Russian minister that '' we should contest the right of Rus- 
sia to any territorial establishment on the continent and that we 
should assume distinctly the principle that the American con- 
tinents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial 
establishments." After negotiations Russia entered into a 
treaty (in 1824) by which she agreed to make no settlements 
on the Pacific coast south of 54° 40', the United States in l^u^^^jy 
turn agreeing to make no establishments north of that line. °^o 40- 
Thus the advance of Russia 'on the coast of the Pacific was 
checked. 

This advance of Russia upon American territory was con- The 
nected with a larger problem which Monroe was called upon Alliance 
to solve. Jn 1808 the Spanish colonies of South America 
began to rebel and throw off the yoke of the mother-country, 
and by 1822 Chili, Peru, Buenos Aires (now Argentine Repub- 
lic), Colombia, and Venezuela had won their independence and 
had been recognized by the United States as free and inde- 
])endent States. But their independence was threatened by a 
combination of European countries known as the floly Al- 
liance^ and consisting of Austria, Erance, Russia, and Prus- 

1 The Holy Alliance was formed in 181 5, soon after the downfall of Napoleon. 
Its professed object was to unite the countries of Europe into a Christian 



3Q2 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

sia. These great powers in 1823 seemed to be on the point of 
The intervening in American affairs with the view of restoring 

of to Spain her lost colonies. What would be the result of such 

John . . , 

Quincy intervention? What would happen if the Allies should sub- 
Adams . ^* 

jugate the newly-born republics of South America? To the 

mind of John Quincy Adams, Monroe's Secretary of State, 
alarming results would follow if the nations of Europe should 
interfere in South America. California, Peru, and Chili, 
he thought, would fall to Russia ; Cuba would go to England, 
for England at the time coveted Cuba ; and Mexico would 
go to France. Thus the United States would be danger- 
ously encircled by three of the great nations of Europe. 
Therefore, Adams urged Monroe to take a firm stand and 
warn Europe against any attempt at intervention in the West- 
ern Hemisphere. England was against intervention by the 
Allies and her Secretary for Foreign Affairs, George Canning, 
proposed that Great Britain and the United States should 
jointly declare their opposition to the threatened interference. 
Monroe was inclined to accept the proposal of Canning, but 
Adams insisted that the protest against intervention be made 
independent of England, for to join with England would be to 
entangle the United States with the affairs of Europe, and thus 
violate a well-established policy of American diplomacy. In 
the end the view of Adams prevailed and the protest was made 
independently of England. In December 1823, Monroe sent to 
Congress a message which declared in effect : 

The ( i) That the United States would not look with favor upon 

Doctrine the planting of any more European colonies on this conti- 
nent. 

(2) That the United States would not meddle in the political 
affairs of Europe. 

(3) That the governments of Europe must not meddle in 
American affairs. 

brotherhood, but its real purpose was to perpetuate the power of the existing 
rulecs and to prevent the growth of liberal political movements in Europe. The 
Alliance came to an end in 1830. 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 303 

This message received the warm approval of the American 
people and the pohcy outlined in it became known as the Mon- 
roe Doctrine.^ And it was received with respect by the na- 
tions of Europe; the Holy .Mliance refrained from interfering 
in the affairs of South America. The doctrine declared by 
Monroe began a " new chapter, yet unfinished, in the history of 
the predominance of the United States in the New World." 

99. THE TARIFF OF 1824. 

Monroe's second term closed with the enactment of a highly ciay's 

*■ -' American 

important tariff measure. The tariff of 1816 proved to be System 
disappointing to the manufacturers. English goods continued 
to be imported in spite of the duties. So, Congress was asked 
to give more protection, that is, to impose higher duties. Ac- 
cordingly in 1824 an act was brought forward to increase the 
duties on wool and woolen goods, on hemp, on pig iron, and 
on iron manufactures. The most powerful champion of the 
act was Henry Clay, who made a plea for the American farmer 
and the American manufacturer. " We must speedily adopt," 
said Clay, " a genuine American policy. Still cherishing the 
foreign market let us create a home market to give further 
scope to the consumption of the products of American in- 
dustry. . . . The creation of a home market is not only neces- 
sary to procure for our agriculture a just reward for its 
labors, but it is indispensable to obtain a supply for our neces- 
sary wants. If we cannot sell we cannot buy." The measure 
was opposed by Daniel Webster, who spoke for the importers 
and the ship-owners, but Clay's " American System '' carried 
the day. The votes of the Middle States and the West were 
cast in favor of the tariff of 1824, while those of New England 
and of the South were for the most part against it. 

1 The general principles involved in the doctrine were clearly stated by 
Jefferson, with whom Monroe consulted while dealing with the question. Accord- 
ing to Calhoun, Adams wrote the clause in reference to the colonies. The mes- 
sage, however, was chiefly the work of Monroe. 



304 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



New 
Leaders 



The 

Election 
of 
Adams 



loo. NEW LEADERS: THE ELECTION OF 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

With the expiration of Monroe's second term the " Virginia 
dynasty " came to an end and new leaders appeared upon 
the scene. There was John Oiiincy Adams, whom we have 
seen rendering notable service in the management of foreign 
affairs. There was William II. Crawford of Georgia, a man 
of wealth, of large experience in public life, and withal a 
most astute politician. Then there were Webster, Clay, and 
Calhoim. three intellectual giants who for more than thirty 
years were foremost in all the great struggles of American poli- 
tics. Lastly, there was Andrew Jackson, whose reputation as a 
soldier had led to his securing a place among statesmen. 

In the election of 1824 Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Adams, and 
Crawford all came forward as candidates to succeed Monroe 
to the Presidency. Before the election was held, however, 
Calhoun withdrew to become the candidate for Vice-President. 
Jackson received 99 of the electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford 
41, and Clay 37. No one of the candidates having secured 
a majority, it became necessary for the House of Representa- 
tives to elect, its choice being limited to the three highest on 
the list of persons voted for by the electors (148). Clay 
was therefore ineligible for election. But he named the suc- 
cessful candidate ; he threw his strength to Adams and thus 
brought about his election. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The Supreme Court and the Constitution: Forman, 157-160. 

2. The great decisions of the Supreme Court: Babcock, 290-308. 

3. State fully Marshall's doctrine of implied powers: Hart HI, 
446-450. 

4. The Missouri Compromise: Halsey V, 147-153; Turner, 149- 
171 ; McMaster IV, 573-592. 

5. Give account of the Panama Congress: Halsey V, i76-i7(;; Hart 
III, 506-508; McMaster V, 441-443. 

6. The Monroe Doctrine: Turner. \i}<.)-22T,\ McMaster ill, ^9-,i9. 
45-48. 51-53; Halsey, 133-143. 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 305 

7. The Monroe Doctrine as Monroe stated it: Hart III, 494-498! 

8. Why did the South oppose protection? Wilson, 39-61. 

9. The Holy Alliance: McMaster V, 31-32, n ; Hart III, 479-480; 
Robinson and Beard, 343-362. 

ID. Dates for the chronological table: 1821, 1823. 

11. Give an account of Lafayette's visit to the United States in 1824. 
Sketch the life of John Randolph and tell some of the anecdotes re- 
lating to him. What were his objections to the protective tariff? 
What arguments did Clay urge in favor of the "American System"? 
Compare the Monroe Doctrine with the policy adopted in 1793 by 
Washington relating to foreign affairs. Is the Monroe Doctrine slill 
upheld by public sentiment? 

12. Special Reading. James Schouler, History of tJie United States, 
Vol. III. Frederick Trevor Hill, Decisive Battles of the Law. D. C. 
Gilman, James Monroe. 



The 

Alleged 

Bargain 

Between 

Adams 

and 

Clay 



XXVIII 

THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 

The sixteen years (1825-1841) following the Era of Good Feeling 
may be called the Jacksonian Era, for during these years Andrew Jack- 
son was the overshadowing figure in American politics. What influ- 
ence did Jackson have upon the politics of his time? What were the 
leading events of the Jacksonian Era? 

loi. JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST ADAMS. 

The administration of Adams was little else than a political 
battle with Andrew Jackson and his friends. Adams was no 
sooner inaugurated (March 4, 1825) than he appointed Henr^ 
Clay as Secretary of State. This appointiuent was at once 

declared by Jackson's friends to 
have been Clay's reward for the 
support which he gave Adams in 
the contest for the Presidency. A 
corruj)t bargain, said the Jackson 
men, had been inade: Clay had 
helped Adams because Adams had 
promised to give Clay the highest 
place in his cabinet. As a matter 
of fact no evidence has been found 
to substantiate Jackson's charge. 
Adams was as honest and as 
straightforward as any man that 
ever sat in the Presidential chair and he was wholly incapable 
of making a corrupt bargain of any kind. • He appointed Clay 
simply because he thought the Kentuckian would give strength 
to his cabinet. But Jackson believed that a bargain had been 
made and he openly charged Clay with purchasing a cabinet 
position by making a President. 

It was not only the alleged bargain between Clay and 

306 




John Quincy Adams. 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 



307 



Adams that caused Jackson to be dissatisfied with the result The 

•' Candi- 

of the election of 1824; Jackson had received more electoral date 

'' , of the 

votes than any other candidate and he felt that he was the Peopio 
people's choice. Whether or not he actually was the choice 
of the people in 1824 cannot be determined, for in some of 
the States the electors were not yet chosen by a popular vote. 
But Jackson, feeling that by the election of Adams the will 
of the people had been defeated, resolved that the people 
should have their will and that he would be their leader. Early 
in 1825 he resigned his seat in the Senate and announced him- 
self as Presidential candidate for election in 1828. He at 
once began a campaign in which for the first time in our history 
a direct appeal was made to the voters for their support. 

As we shall see presently, the campaign of Jackson re- Jackson's 
suited in the organization of a new political party and in ter 
bringing about a revolution in American politics. What were 
the characteristics of the man who was to exert such a power- 
ful influence upon his time ? " Jackson," says Professor Bur- 
gess, " was ignorant and unschooled, indeed, but virtuous, 

brave, and patriotic beyond any r — 

cavil or question ; faithful and de- 
voted in his domestic life, abso- 
lutely unapproachable by pecun- 
iary mducements ; the best of 
friends and the most implacable 
of enemies ; quick, hasty in form- 
ing his judgments and tenacious 
beyond expression in holding to 
them ; earnest, terrible in the in- 
flexibility of his purposes; unflinch- 
ing and recklessly daring in the 
performance of what he felt to be 
his duty ; hostile to all gradations 
of power and privilege ; the military 

hero of the country and a martyr to the persecutions of the 
politicians — here were certainly qualities to raise the enthu- 
siasm of the masses if not of the classes." 




Andrew Jackson. 



3o8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

National 
Repub- 
licans 



An Ill- 
fated 
Adminis- 
tration 



The 
Tariff 
of 
1828 



The entrance of such a strong personaHty into politics was 
bound to produce a division of parties on personal lines. Soon 
the old Democratic party found itself split into a Jackson 
party and an anti-Jackson party. The Jackson men claimed 
to be Democrats of the old Jefifersonian type, but in reality 
they were simply zealous and devoted followers of their chief. 
They rallied around Jackson not as a political thinker or even 
as the leader of a particular party, but as the man whom they 
trusted and whom the nation could trust. The anti-Jackson 
men under the leadership of Adams and Clay soon began to 
call themselves National Republicans, but they too cared little 
for party names or party principles ; their only aim was to 
prevent Jackson from coming into power. 

The Jackson men, of course, early directed their attacks 
against Adams with the view of discrediting his administration 
and rendering it unpopular. This was not difficult to do, as 
Adams himself was a very unpopular man. While faithful 
to duty he was at the same time so cold and stifif in his 
manner that it has been said of him that at every step he 
took he made an enemy. He was very unpopular with Con- 
gress, and the Jackson men in that body were powerful enough 
to thwart him in his plans. Not one administrative measure 
of importance was carried through Congress during the four 
years that Adams was President. Indeed, Congress seldom 
vouchsafed so much as a respectful consideration of the meas- 
ures which he proposed. He strongly advocated a broad 
policy of internal improvements, believing that Congress 
should make liberal appropriations for the construction of in- 
terstate highways and canals and for deepening and otherwise 
improving rivers and harbors, but in this policy he was op- 
posed by the leaders of his party, especially by those of the 
South, who feared that such an expenditure would unduly in' 
crease the power of the federal government. Nevertheless, 
during the administration of Adams more than $2,000,000 
were expended on roads and harbors. 

While the Jackson men in Congress were beating down 
Adams they were at the same time doing all they couUI to 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 309 

advance the interests of their leader. As an incident in this 
campaign the tariff law of 1828 was passed. This law car- 
ried the protective principle beyond any point it had yet 
reached. The duties which it placed on hemp, pig iron, wool, 
coarse cotton, and woolen goods, iron manufactures, sugar, 
and salt, were so high as to prohibit importations. The law 
was intended, of course, to benefit the manufacturers, but 
John Randolph was close to the truth when he said " it re- 
ferred to manufactures of no kind except the manufacture 
of a President of the United States," for in the framing of the 
bill political considerations were dominant and both the Adams 
men and the Jackson men manoeuvered for advantage. As 
it turned out the advantage was with the Jackson men, for 
the law was satisfactory to the Middle States and the West, 
the two sections upon which Jackson relied for his strength. 

While Jackson's friends were making political capital for The 

•' , . . . Election 

him in Washington, the candidate himself was moving aljout of 
among the people, the central figure of receptions and public 
dinners. When the time for the election of 1828 arrived 
the anti-Jackson men put Adams forward as their candidate. 
Adams did almost nothing to strengthen his candidacy, rely- 
ing upon his excellent record as a statesman. Jackson's sole 
reliance was on the good-will of the people and the results 
of the election showed that he had secured their good-will. 
The popular vote was 647,276 for Jackson and 508,064 for 
Adams; the electoral vote was 178 for Jackson and 83 for 
Adams. The strength of Adams was in New England and 
the Middle States. Jackson was supported by the South, but 
his main strength was in the West. Himself a frontiersman, 
he voiced as no other man could the sentiments and the as- 
\ pirations of the democracy that was acquiring such head- 
. way (p. 293) in the western country. Every electoral vote 
west of the Alleghanies was cast for him. 

In the campaign of 1828 Jackson did not seek the nomina- Jackson- 
lion through the aid of politicians and through the action Democ- 
of the congressional caucus (p. 241), but carried his candi- 
dacy directly to the voters. This direct method of campaigning 



310 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



led rapidly to a complete change in the method of nominating 
Presidential candidates. In 1823 the people of Blount County, 
Tennessee, at a mass-meeting, nominated Jackson for President. 
From that time on, nominating influences began at the bottom 
instead of at the top. Mass-meetings, State legislatures, and 
State conventions began to express their views as to presi- 
dential candidates and by 1832 the Congressional Caucus had 
disappeared and a national convention consisting of dele- 
gates from all the States had begun to name the party candi- 
dates for President and Vice-President. Along with this pop- 
ular method of naming the presidential candidate there was 
established the custom of electing the presidential electors by 
a direct vote of the people. At the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, in most of the States, the electors were chosen 
by the legislature, but by 1832 all the States but one (South 
Carolina) were electing the electors by a popular vote. The 
triumph of Jackson, therefore, was a triumph of direct or 
pure democracy. And herein we find the essence of Jack- 
sonian democracy. Jackson brought the people and the gov- 
ernment together ; he made the government a partnership in 
which the people themselves were the partners. 



The 

Inaugura- 
tion of 
Jackson 



The 

Spoils 

System 



102. JACKSON AND THE OFFICES. 

On the day of Jackson's inauguration (March 4, 1829) 
Washington was crowded to overflowing with visitors shouting 
and hurrahing for Jackson. " I never saw such a crowd be- 
fore," said Webster. " Persons have come hundreds of miles 
to see General Jackson and they really seem to think that 
the country is rescued from some dreadful danger. At the 
White House the crowds upset the pails of punch, broke the 
glasses, and stood with their muddy boots on the satin covered 
chairs to see the people's President." 

Many of those who flocked to the inauguration came as 
oftice-seekers. It was one of the doctrines of Jacksonian 
democracy that office was a thing to be fought for at the polls 
and that to the victors belonged the spoils. Now that the 
battle had been fought and won thousands of the followers 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 3" 

of Jackson came forward for their share in the spoils of office. 
Jackson did not wish to disappoint them and he soon began to 
turn men out of their offices in order to make room for his 
friends. This was something new in the administration of 
the national government. Before Jackson's time postmasters, 
clerks, customs-house officers, and the like, were allowed, as 
a rule, to remain in office as long as they behaved themselves 
properly and did their work well. But Jackson was hardly 
in office before a general proscription began. " Age, length 
of service, satisfactory performance of duties, or financial de- 
pendence were no protection. Men who had grown old in 
the government service were dismissed at a moment's notice 
and without recourse." It was estimated that within a year 
more than 2,000 persons were deprived of their offices. Jack- 
son could make these wholesale removals with a good con- 
science for he believed that in most cases no special fitness 
was required for holding office. One man, he said, could 
perform the duties of an office about as well as another. He 
did not think that those who were dismissed had any real 
ground for complaint. " He who is removed," he said, " has 
the same means of obtaining a living that are enjoyed by 
the millions who never hold office." Although the public 
service was greatly crippled by the removals, and although 
considerable distress was brought upon those who suddenly 
lost their employment, the mass of the people nevertheless 
approved of Jackson's course. The spoils system was popular 
from the beginning and the example set by Jackson of using 
the offices to reward political friends was followed by suc- 
ceeding Presidents for more than fifty years. So, one of the 
first fruits of Jacksonian democracy was the establishment of 
the spoils system. 

103. JACKSON AND NULLIFICATION. 

Jackson soon had to face a question much graver than that The 
involved in the distribution of federal patronage. Before he of*" 
had been in office a year there arose a question which involved tion™'°*' 
the very existence of the Union. This was the old ques- 



312 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tion of Nullification, which had loomed up in 1799 (p. 241) 
and later, in 1814 (p. 276). The thing that revived the nul- 
lification idea was the tariff law of 1828, the " tariff of abom- 
inations " as it was called. This law incurred the instant 
resentment of the South. When its passage was announced 
in Charleston, flags were displayed at half-mast in the harbor 
and at a public meeting the people were urged not to buy 
the manufactures of the North. The protest of South Caro- 
lina was followed by similar ones in Georgia, Mississippi, and 
Virginia. These complaints for the most part were just. 
The tariff of 1828 benefited the North at the expense of 
the South. The high duties on hemp and iron manufactures 
and on woolens and cottons operated to prevent the South 
from buying in foreign markets. The prohibitory duties on 
coarse cottons and woolens were especially onerous to the 
South ; for the slaves were clothed with these coarse fabrics 
and, since the South had no manufacturing of its own, the 
planters were compelled to buy from Northern manufactur- 
ers at a price 40 per cent, higher than in the markets of Europe. 
This exclusion from the foreign market appeared all the 
more unjust when it was considered that in 1829 nearly 
three-fourths of our agricultural exports and nearly three-fifths 
of our exports of every kind consisted of the cotton and to- 
bacco and rice which were shipped from southern ports. That 
is to say, the section of the country which sold the most to 
foreign markets was prevented from buying in those markets. 
At first the South supported the protection measures, but 
by 1829 the Southern people, convinced that the protective 
system was inimical to their interests, were prepared to offer 
resistance to that system, 
"interpo- Resistance first showed itself in South Carolina. The lead- 
ing men of this State took the ground that a tariff that favored 
one section of the country at the expense of another was not 
uniform (68) and was therefore unconstitutional, void, 
and of no effect. How was a State to protect itself against 
a law that was unconstitutional ? Calhoun had an answer to 
the question. This great man for many years was the leader 



sition" 




THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 313 

of the South and its ablest spokesman. He was born of 
Scotch-Irish parents in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1782. 
After graduating with honors at Yale College he fitted him- 
self for the practice of the law. In 181 1 he entered Congress caihoun 
where we saw (p. 269) him active in bringing on the War of 
1812. He was Secretary of War under Monroe and was 
elected Vice-President of the 
United States in 1825 and reelected 
in 1829, In the early part of his 
political career he was an advocate 
of a protective tariff but later he 
declared for free trade. When the 
tariff and slavery began to section- 
alize the country he came forward 
as the champion of the South and 
as the defender of the rights of the 
States. His speeches were clear, 

forcible, and logical ; and his power 

J , , , 1 J J John C. Calhoun, 

m debate was acknowledged even 

by the greatest of his opponents. For the protection of a 
State that was about to have its interests adversely affected by 
a federal law Calhoun proposed a remedy known as " Inter- 
position." A State coni'ention was to determine whether an 
act complained of was unconstitutional or not, and if it were 
found unconstitutional the convention was then to determine 
in what manner the State was to " interpose " and render the 
obnoxious law null and void. This plan for setting in motion 
the forces of nullification was adopted by the legislature of 
South Carolina in 1828 and was circulated throughout the 
State as an official manifesto. 

It was impossible for the government at Washington to The 
ignore what was going on in South Carolina. In 1830 the on 
question of nullification was brought up on the floor of Con- cation 
gress and a memorable debate followed. Senator Hayne of 
South Carolina plainly declared " that in case the federal gov- 
ernment should make aggressions which seemed deliberate, pal- 
pable, and dangerous violations of the rights reserved to the 



314 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Webster 



The 
Tarifif 
of 
1832 




States under the Constitution, any State would be justified, 
when her solemn protests failed of effect, in resisting the 
efforts of the federal government to execute the measure 
complained of within her jurisdiction." This doctrine of nul- 
lification was promptly attacked by Daniel Webster, then a 
Senator from Massacluisetts. Webster was born in the same 

year as Calhoun, he entered Con- 
gress (in 1813) two years after 
Calhoun first made his appearance 
in that body, and for nearly twenty 
years the two men served in the 
Senate together. As Calhoun was 
the defender of the rights of the 
State, so Webster was the defender 
of the Constitution. " Webster 
defended the Constitution," said 
Edward Everett, " because he felt 
that it was a kind of earthly provi- 
dence surrounding us alike while 
we wake and while we sleep, and 
assuring us blessings such as never before were enjoyed by 
any people since the creation of the world." Webster saw 
that the authority of the Constitution was threatened by the 
doctrine of nullification and against the doctrine enunciated 
by Hayne he threw all the force of his matchless eloquence. 
He contended that a State had no right to judge for itself 
whether a law was contrary to the Constitution or not ; only 
the Supreme Court of the United States had the right to make 
such a decision (p. 296). "If each State," he asked, "had 
the right to find judgment on questions in which she is in- 
terested, is not the whole Union a rope of sand ? " 

Inasmuch as it was the tariff" that was responsible for so 
much unrest in the South, Congress in 1832 overhauled the 
" tariff of abominations " and passed a law which reduced 
some of the rates of which the Southern people complained. 
But in the law there was a specific declaration to the effect that 
it was the purpose of Congress to establish the protective 



Daniel Webster. 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 315 

system upon a permanent basis. Heretofore the system of 
protection was regarded by most persons as a shifting and 
temporary policy. The tariff of 1832 therefore marked a 
new era in the history of protection : for the system that had 
been tentative and temporary was now fixed and permanent. 
When the South saw that it was to be burdened by a The 

NuUifi- 

permanent protective system its indignation rose higher than catioa 

ever. South CaroHna at once prepared for " interposition." ^^^.y^^ 

Her lesiislature called a convention which met at Columbia Caro- 

° liua 

and declared (November 1832), that the tariff acts of 1828 

and 1832 were void and that they need not be obeyed by the 
citizens or officers of the State. Following the doctrine of 
"Interposition" (Nullification) to its logical conclusion the 
convention went on to declare : " We, the people of South Caro- 
lina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and the people of the co-States, 
that we are determined to maintain this, our ordinance and 
declaration, at every hazard, do further declare that we will 
not submit to the application of force, on the part of the 
Federal Government, to reduce this State to obedience ; but 
that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act 
authorizing the employment of a military or naval force 
against the State of South Carolina, her constituted author- 
ities or citizens, as inconsistent with the longer continuance 
of South Carolina in the Union: and that the people of this 
State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all 
further obligation to maintain or preserve their political con- 
nexion with the people of the other States, and will forthwith 
proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other 
acts and things which sovereign and independent States may 
of right do." In order to show that this declaration was not 
an idle threat the State armed itself and prepared for war. 

The nullification ordinance struck at the authority of the Jackson 

1 , . , , ^ , . ... Attitude 

national government and it aroused the fighting spirit in Toward 
Jackson. He promptly informed South Carolina that the fication 
laws of the United States must be obeyed by the people of 
all the States and he warned her of the danger into which she 



1833 



3l6 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

was running. " If force should be necessary," he said, " I 
will have 40,000 men in South Carolina to put down resist- 
ance and enforce the law." To a member of Congress he 
said : " Please give my compliments to my friends in your 
State and say to them that if a single drop of blood shall 
be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States 
I will hang the first man I lay my hands on engaged in such 
conduct upon the first tree I can reach." Congress in re- 
sponse to Jackson's request quickly passed what is known as 
the Force-Bill — ■ a measure which gave the President power 
to employ force in the execution of the tariff laws. 
The But there was no occasion to use force, for Henry Clay 

Compro- . . . 1 • 1 J 

mise came forward with a timely compromise measure which saved 

of the situation from violence. Next to Tackson, Clay was the 

most striking figure upon the political stage. He was less 
eloquent than Webster and less logical and profound than 
Calhoun, but he was more popular and influential than either. 
Like Jackson, he was a man of the people, but he was better 
loved than Jackson. " Other Americans," says Rhodes, " have 
been intellectually greater, others have been greater benefac- 
tors to the country, yet no man 
has been loved as the people of the 
United States loved Henry Clay." 
The power of Clay consisted in a 
rare ability to organize the forces 
that work for compromise, for to 
his mind compromise was one of 
the " white virtues." " All wise 
human legislators," he said, " must 
consult in some degree the passions 
and prejudices and feelings, as well 
as the interests of the people. It 
eniy ay. would be vain and foolish to proceed 

at all times and under all circumstances upon the notion of 
al)Solute certainty in any system or infallibility in any dogma." 
In this spirit of concession and compromise Clay pushed 
through Congress (ii? 1833) ^ tariff bill that was more favor- 




THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 317 

able to the South. The compromise measure provided for a 
gradual reduction of rates so that by 1842 there should be a 
uniform duty of 20 per cent, upon all dutiable articles and no 
article thereafter should pay a duty higher than 20 per cent. 
This concession was satisfactory to the South and it had the 
effect of bringing the nullification movement to an end, for 
South Carolina repealed the nullifying ordinance and yielded 
obedience to the new tarifif law. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. President Adams and the opposition: Turner, 265-284; McMaster 
V, 498-501, 505-S08. 

2. Internal improvements: Turner, 287-299; McDonald, 137-141. 

3. The Tariff of Abominations: Wilson, 25-50; McMaster V, 254- 
263. 

4. Give the history of Jackson's first election: Halsey VI, 3-12; Mc- 
Donald, 28-41. 

5. Nullification: Halsey VI, 36-41; MacDonald, 154-167; Wilson, 
59-62. 

6. The Spoils System: Hart III, 531-535; Wilson, 30-34. 

7. Indian affairs (1825-1837) : MacDonald, 169-181 ; McMaster V, 

175-183, 537-54'o. 

8. Foreign Affairs under Jackson : MacDonald, 200-227. 

9. Dates for the chronological table: 1825, 1828, 1830. 

10. Sketch the early life of Andrew Jackson. What was the 
"Kitchen cabinet"? State Calhoun's views on nullification. Give an 
account of the " Albany Regency." Why did Jackson receive the nick- 
name of "Old Hickory"? What were the terms of the Force Bill of 
1833? Read in the class a strong passage from the speech of Hayne; 
a strong passage from the speech of Webster. 

11. Special Rending. J. S. Bassett, The Life of Andrew Jackson. 
John T. Morse, Jr., JoJin Qiiincy Adams. Carl Schurz, Henry Clay. 
James Schouler, History of the United States, Vols. Ill and IV. 



XXIX 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (continued) 



104. JACKSON AND THE BANK. 

While the nuhification storm was brewing, the presidential 
campaign of 1832 was in progress. The candidates were 
Jackson and Clay. Jackson had hardly begun his first tern-t 
before his friends began to plan for his reelection. It did not 
accord with Jackson's notions of democracy that a President 
should hold office for more than one term, and in his messages 
to Congress he repeatedly urged that there should be an amend- 
ment to the Constitution limiting the eligibility of the Presi- 
dent to a single term of four or six years. But as no ac- 
tion was taken in regard to the matter he did not hesitate 
to avail himself of the privilege of reelection. As far as 
his personal inclinations were concerned he did not desire a 
second term, but political considerations and the pressure of 
his friends caused him to accept the nomination which was 
tendered him by legislatures and political societies in all parts 
of the Union. 

Perhaps the thing that did most to prevent Jackson from 
returning to private life at the close of his first term was his 
deep-seated determination to destroy the second Bank of the 
United States, an institution which in 18 16 had been re-char- 
tered for a period of twenty years. The opposition of the 
President was due chiefly to the fact that some of the officials 
of the bank had presumed to meddle in political affairs. In his 
first message (1829) Jackson had used threatening words in re- 
gard to this bank and his hostility to it seemed to increase year 
by year. He came to hate the bank so bitterly that it is said 
that he would sometimes choke when he uttered its name. In 
1832 the bank applied to Congress for a renewal of its charter 

318 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 319 

wliich was to expire in 1836. A charter was granted, but 
Jackson vetoed the bill on the ground that the privileges 
granted to the bank were monopolistic in character and on 
the further ground that the bank was unconstitutional. It was 
true the Supreme Court had declared such a bank to be con- 
stitutional, " but this tribunal," said Jackson, " ought not to 
control the coordinate authority of this government. Each 
public officer who takes an oath (128) to support the Con- 
stitution swears that he v.^ill support it as he understands 
it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The opinion 
of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the 
opinion of Congress has over the judges and on that point the 
President is independent of both." Strong efforts were made 
to override the veto, but it was sustained. 

The veto carried the bank question into the campaign of The 

. . - . . Campaign 

1832 and caused a sharp division of party lines. Enemies of 

of the banks called themselves Democrats and rallied around 
Jackson. Friends of the bank called themselves National Re- 
publicans and rallied to the support of Clay. The candidates 
were nominated by a National Convention.^ Jackson was 
nominated at Baltimore, delegates from every State but one 
being present. Clay was also nominated at Baltimore, sev- 
enteen States being represented by delegates. The campaign 
was a spirited one. The bank was the chief question and 
the stumps throughout the country rang with cries for and 
against the bank until the November election was held. Jack- 
son's 219 electoral votes to Clay's 49 showed that the country 
was against the bank. 

Jackson, accepting the result of the election as the voice The 
of the people, waged war upon the bank more ferociously than of the 
ever. In 1833 he directed the Secretary of the Treasury to 
issue an order forbidding the collectors of the United States 
to deposit any more money in the bank. The money that was 

1 The first national nominating convention was held at Baltimore in 1831 by 
the Anti-Masons. This party was organized to oppose the alleged influence of 
freemasonry in politics. It nominated William Wirt for President in 183 1. The 
party soon dissolved and was absorbed by the Whigs. 



320 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

already on deposit — about $10,000,000 — was drawn out in 
the ordinary course of meeting the expenses of the govern- 
ment. The bank was thus depleted of the government depos- 
its. Jackson's reason for causing the deposits to be removed 
was that he was convinced the bank had violated its charter by 
employing its funds to influence elections. The bank never re- 
covered from the blo^v which Jackson gave it when he ceased 
to make it a depository of the public funds. As a national 
institution it expired with its charter in 1836, although it was 
re-chartered in Pennsylvania as a State bank. 
The In the removal of the deposits Jackson acted in a high- 

of handed manner and his course brought upon him the censure 

Censure 

of the Senate. In 1834 that body resolved: "That the Presi- 
dent in the late Executive proceedings in relation to the pub- 
lic revenue has assumed upon himself authority and power not 
conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of 
both." This vote of censure stung Jackson to the quick and 
he did not rest until ii was expunged. Through the exer- 
tions of his friend, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, the 
odious words of censure were expunged by the order of the 
Senate (December 1836). With this act of the Senate the 
bank incident came to an end. 

105. JACKSON AND THE INDIANS. 

Throughout both terms of his administration Jackson was 
called upon to deal with important questions relating to In- 
dian affairs. At the beginning of his first term nearly 50,000 
Indians — Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and oth- 
ers — were living in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Ten- 
nessee and were occupying upward of 30,000,000 acres of the 
best land of the South. The white men wanted these lands, 
but the Indians were reluctant to give them up. Jackson, 
though he had been the scourge of the Indians in warfare, 
was nevertheless disposed to treat them fairly. In his first 
message he indicated the chief points of his Indian policy : the 
redmen were to be given the choice either of remaining on so 
much of their lands as they could use and obeying the laws of 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 321 

the State in which they happened to Hve, or of surrendering' 
their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands west 
of that river. Experience showed that because of their tribal 
relations it was not practicable for them to remain on their 
lands and submit to the white man's laws; therefore in 1830 
Congress provided for the exchange of Indian lands in the 
South for lands in the West and appropriated money for the 
removal of the Indians to the trans-Mississippi country. Most 
of the tribes acquiesced in the policy of removal ; the Cherokees, 
however, offered a stubborn resistance, and were not removed 
until Jackson threw the force of the federal government 
against them. The policy of removal was steadily carried out, 
so that by 1840 most of the tribes east of the Mississippi had 
been transplanted west of that river in the country long known 
as the Indian Territory. 

106. THE ADMINISTRATION OF MARTIN VAN BUREN 
(1837-1841). 

One of the most faithful followers of Jackson was Martin The 
Van Buren of New York. Van Buren had served Jackson of 

successfully in the field of prac- Buren 
tical politics and as his Secre- 
tary of State had managed ques- 
tions of foreign diplomacy in a 
manner highly creditable to the 
administration. So when Jackson 
came to express a choice as to 
his successor, he named Van 
Buren, and Van Buren with little 
difficulty was elected. 

Van Buren was only the length- wud- 

r T *^ cat 

ened shadow of Jackson. He re- cur- 
Martin Van Buren. ^ • j t 1 ' 1 • , 1 rency 

tamed Jackson s cabmet and an- 
nounced his intention of " treading in the footsteps of his illus- 
trious predecessor." But Van Buren soon found that Jackson 
had not left him a path of roses in which to tread. In his finan- 
cial measures Jackson had sowed the wind and it was the lot of 




322 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Specula- 
tion 



"Specie 
Circu- 
lar" 



Van Buren to reap the whirlwind. When Jackson crushed the 
Bank of the United States he at the same time increased the 
power of the hundreds of State banks that were scattered 
throughout the country. These banks could issue notes like the 
promissory notes of an individual, but these notes could not be 
made legal tender (72) ; one could accept them or not as one 
pleased. Even while the Bank of the United States still ex- 
isted the notes of the State banks formed a large part of the 
currency. After the destruction of the great national bank 
the State banks were encouraged to issue notes in larger quan- 
tities than ever. In some of the States, especially in the 
West, the State banks issued notes regardless of their ability 
to redeem them, that is, regardless of their ability to take 
them up and give gold and silver for them. Since this " wild- 
cat " currency — as the worthless paper issues of banks were 
called — cost only the printing, banks with very little capital, or 
with none at all, would put out their notes as freely as banks 
that had gold and silver with which to redeem their issues. 
The result of this wild-cat banking was to stimulate specu- 
lation of every kind. Money was easy to get and men went 
into all kinds of schemes. A favorite field of speculation was 
the public lands. In 1834, the sales of the public lands 
amounted in value to $5,000,000; two years later when specu- 
lation was at fever heat the land sales brought nearly $25,000,- 
000 into the national treasury.^ Much of this land was paid 
for in wild-cat currency. Jackson believed that the only sound 
currency was gold and silver. So, in July 1836, he caused 
to be sent out to the land agents his famous " Specie Circu- 
lar," This directed that public lands could be paid for only 
in gold or silver. This order was a wholesome check upon 
the wild issue of paper money, but it brought distress to many 
who were dealing in public lands. 



1 These heavy receipts from land sales enabled the government to pay off the 
national debt (1835) and still have a surplus of more than $35,000,000. Of this 
surplus about $28,000,000 was distributed to the several States in proportion to 
their respective representation in the Senate and House. In name the money 
thus given to the States was a deposit, but in fact it was a gift. To this day 
not a dollar of the surplus money deposited with the States has been called for. 



THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 323 

When the Specie Circular was issued the country was on The 

. • li A 11 1 I- M TT it Condi- 

the verge of a panic. All the conditions, says Hart, were tions 

, 1 •,-•,111 r • 1 Tavora- 

ripe for a crash : an artincial and reckless system 01 private and bie to a 
public finance ; the States plunging into debt out of all propor- 
tion to their means and incurring interest charges which would 
require higher taxes than their people had ever known. Pri- 
vate banking expanded from the ease of raising funds abroad 
and of placing them at home ; the country merchant stretching 
his credit to buy new stocks of goods, and giving credit to his 
farmer customers ; real estate soaring upward . . . men will- 
ing even in financial centers to pay ruinous discounts. In 
seven years a balance of trade of $140,000,000 was created 
against the United States. Cotton was very high, rising to 
sixteen cents; and thousands of southwestern planters bought 
negroes on credit, expecting to pay for them out of their cot- 
ton crop. If anything occurred to check this feeling of buoy- 
ant confidence a crash must come." 

Van Buren had hardly entered upon his duties before the The 

. ^ Panic 

effects of the Specie Circular began to be felt. The large of 
volumes of paper currency which had been intended for the 
purchase of lands began to come back to the banks for re- 
demption, and redemption was impossible. Confidence was 
thus shaken and the crash came. Prices rose suddenly ; flour 
from five to eleven dollars per barrel ; corn from fifty cents to 
a dollar a bushel. In New York there were bread riots. 
Mills and factories were shut down, business houses closed 
their doors, workmen were thrown out of employment and 
distress was general. 

Van Buren was appealed to for relief and in response to pub- The 

,. . 1 11 1 • r i^ T-. Independ 

he sentiment he called an extra session of Congress. But ent 

there was little that either the President or Congress could do 
to bring back good times. Van Buren refused to withdraw 
the order for the Specie Circular. Indeed he went even fur- 
ther than Jackson in his opposition to paper money by de- 
manding that the business of the post-office be conducted on 
a specie basis. He did, however, urge Congress to establish 
an independent treasury so that the federal government could 



1840 



324 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

keep its money in its own vaults and not be dependent upon 
banks for the safe-keeping of its funds. Although the in- 
fluence of the banks was thrown against the plan, neverthe- 
less after long debates extending through several sessions Con- 
gress passed (in 1840) an act under which the Treasury of 
the United States was directed to keep in its own vaults the 
monies coming into its hands. Thus the Independent Treas- 
ury system was established. Under it the funds of the govern- 
ment were deposited in the treasury building at Washington 
and in sub-treasuries located in the principal cities of the 
country.^ 
The Although the real causes of a panic are usually so deep- 

of ^^ seated that they cannot be clearly ascertained, the political 

party which is in power during a period of financial depression 
is generally held responsible for the hard times. So, \'an Bu- 
ren and the Democratic party had to bear the blame for the 
panic of 1837. In 1840 when the Democrats nominated Van 
Buren for reelection their candidate was a discredited man. 
The country had come to regard him as a selfish, scheming 
politician, unfit for the high office of President. The Whig 

party — as the National Republi- 
can party was now called — nomi- 
nated William Henry Harrison of 
Ohio for President and John Tyler 
of Virginia for Vice-President. 
A picturesque and noisy campaign 
— the log-cabin, hard cider cam- 
paign — followed with the result 
of an overwhelming victory for the 
Whigs. Jackson could not save 
even his own State of Tennessee 

for \'an Buren, and Van Buren 

William Henry Harrison. 1 1 <_ 1 • o^. ^ 

could not even save his own State 

of New York for himself. 

Thus the Jacksonian Era closed with the defeat of the Demo- 

1 The sub-treasury system was abolished in 1841, but was restored in 1846 and 
was not ai'ani disturbed. 




THE JACKSONIAN ERA (1825-1841) 325 

cratic party which had been in control for forty years. The wwgs 
successful Whig party was not an organization with fixed po- Demo- 
litical principles; it was a heterogeneous body composed of 
a number of diverse and conflicting elements, the only bond 
of union between which was opposition to the Democratic 
party. On the other hand, the Democratic party in 1840 was 
still true to Jefi^ersonian doctrines (p. 256) ; it still professed to 
stand up for the rights of the States, to construe the constitu- 
tion strictly, and to practice economy in public affairs. But the 
Whig party professed nothing and raised no questions ; " it 
ventured but twice in its history (1848 and 1852) to adopt a 
platform of principles, and it ventured but once (1844) to 
nominate a candidate for the Presidency with any avowed 
political principles." 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The election of 1832: MacDonald, 183-199; McMaster VI, 114- 

152- 

2. The Bank question: Wilson, 69-84; Burgess, 190-209; MacDon- 
ald, 218-239; McMaster VI, 183-198; Dewey, 198-216. 

3. The distribution of the surplus: Wilson, 86-88; Dewey, 217-222. 

4. Public lands and the Specie Circular : MacDonald, 276-291 ; Wil- 
son, 41-48. 

5. The election of 1836 : MacDonald, 292-305. 

6. The Panic of 1837: McMaster VI, 389-415; Dewey, 224-247. 

7. The administration of Martin Van Buren : Wilson, 93-100. 

8. The election of 1840: Garrison, 123-140; McMaster VI, 550-592, 

9. Dates for the chronological table : 1832, 1837, 1840. 

10. Summarize the political events of the Jacksonian Era. 

11. What was the origin of the word "stump speaker"? Who were 
the "barnburners"? Who were the "Hunkers"? Who were the 
"Loco Focos"? Sketch the life of Thomas Hart Benton; of Martin 
Van Buren. Describe the duel between Clay and John Randolph (see 
Halsey V, 192-204). Name in the order of their greatness six of 
the most prominent politicians of the Jacksonian Era (1825-1841). 
Give reasons for the assignment of rank. Give a graphic account of the 
" Tippecanoe and Tyler Too " campaign. 

12. Special Reading. Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas H. Benton. Ed- 
ward M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren. 



XXX 

PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 

While statesmen during the Era of Good FeeHng and during the 
Jacksonian Era were struggling with great political problems, business 
men and toilers far removed from the scene of political struggles, were 
working with all their might to develop the nation's marvelous re- 
sources. What was the story of our development between 1820 and 
1840? What new territory was opened up to settlement? What in- 
dustrial and social progress was made? 



Exten- 
sion 
of the 
National 
Road 



The 
Erie 
Canal 



107. THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840. 

The Westward Movement which was already in full swing 
by 1820 was accelerated and strengthened between 1820 and 
1840 by a most remarkable development in the routes of trans- 
portation between the East and the West and between the 
interior parts of the West itself. We saw that by the aid 
of Congress a great national turnpike was constructed between 
Cumberland and Wheeling (p. 283). In 1824 plans for ex- 
tending this road were laid, and by 1840 it had passed through 
Zanesville and Columbus in Ohio ; through Richmond, Indian- 
apolis, and Terre Haute, in Indiana, and had reached its west- 
ern terminus at Vandalia in Illinois. Tiie great National Road 
thus traversed the central portion of three large States, forming 
for many years the principal tie between the East and the 
West. Traffic on this highway was always heavy ; at times 
the road was so crowded that it resemljled a great street in a 
populous city. 

The construction of the National Road was brought about 
largely by the influence of Baltimore merchants who wished 
to secure for their city an easy route to the West. But the 
merchants from the city of New York also wished an easy 
route to the West. They especially desired better commiini- 

326 




i 



327 



328 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Clin- 
ton's 
Prophecy 



The 

Pennsyl- 
vania 
Canals 



cation with the western part of their own State, for in the 
early years of the nineteenth century much of the wheat and 
flour of western New York went down the Susquehanna to 
Baltimore.^ Indeed it was the Susquehanna trade that gave 
Baltimore its start as a commercial city. To reach the west- 
ern country the people of New York constructed the Erie 
Canal, which extended from Albany to Buffalo, connecting 
the Hudson River with Lake Erie. The digging of this " great 
ditch " was begun in 1817 when De Witt Clinton, the governor 
of New York, turned the first spadeful of earth. In 1825 
the canal was completed and thrown open to the public. In 
the mind of Clinton the canal was to be a political as well as 
a commercial tie between the East and the West. As a bond 
of union between the Atlantic and the western States he said 
" it may prevent the dismemberment of the American empire. 
As an organ of communication between the Hudson, the Mis- 
sissippi, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes of the North and 
West and their tributary rivers, it will create the greatest in- 
land trade ever witnessed. The most fertile and extensive 
regions of America will avail themselves of its facilities for a 
market. All their surplus productions, whether of the soil, 
the forest, the mines, or the water, their fabrics of art, and 
their supplies of foreign commodities, will concentrate in the 
city of New York. That city will in the course of time become 
the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the 
seat of manufacturing, the focus of great moneyed operations 
. . . and before the revolution of a century the whole island 
of Manhattan, covered with habitations and replenished with 
a dense population, will constitute one vast city." 

The opening of the Erie Canal was a signal for canal con- 
struction in other States. Pennsylvania promptly began to 
plan for a system of canals leading from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh. In 1826 work on such a system was begun and nine 



1 Rough boats known as " arks " were built and floated down the river in the 
high water caused by the melting of the snows in the Alleghany highlands. From 
two to five hundred barrels of flour were carried in one of these crafts. /\s 
the boats could not be sailed up the river, they were taken to pieces at the end 
of the voyage and sold for lumber. Brigham, From Trail to Railway, p. 4i- 



PROGRESS BETWEExN 1820 AND 1840 329 

years later one could travel by a horse-railway from Philadel- 
phia to the town of Columbia on the Susquehanna ; thence by 
a canal along the Susquehanna and Juniata to Hollidaysburg : 
thence over the mountains by a portage railway to Johnstown 
and thence to Pittsburgh on the Ohio River. 

Nor was the canal building confined to the East. By 18^^ Canais 

. . ^ . -^ ^"^ inthe 

the State of Ohio had joined Lake Erie to the Ohio River by West 
a canal which ran from Cleveland to Portsmouth, and by 1835 
had connected Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo by means of 
the Miami Canal. Thus in the work of opening up the coun- 
try by means of canals the West supplemented the great 
achievements of the East. 

In addition to the canals the railroad also began during this Early 
• 1 J 1 % r • Rail- 

period to make its appearance as an agency of transportation, roads 

At first the cars on the railroads were drawn by horses, but in 
1830 a steam locomotive, invented by Peter Cooper, was put 
upon the tracks for a trial trip between Baltimore and Ellicott 
Mills. The trip was in the main successful and marked the 
beginning of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad. In ' '*»• 
1834 a railroad 136 miles 
in length was completed 
from Charleston, South 
Carolina, to Hamburg, op- 
posite Augusta. In 1835 
twenty-two railroads were 

in operation and by 1840 

^1 ., ., r ^1 The first passenger train in Mich- 

the railway mileage of the j^^n. Erie & Kalamazoo R. R., 1835. 

country had reached nearly 

3,000 miles. Railroads, however, had not yet demonstrated 
their great efficiency as carriers ; the wagon-road, the canal, 
and the river were still the chief means of inland transporta- 
tion. 

The canals did all their projectors claimed they would do. The 

^ Xv6SU1lS 

The immediate results of the Erie Canal outran even the ex- of the 

Erie 

pectations of Clinton himself. Before this waterway was canai 
built it cost $100 to carry a ton of goods from Buffalo to New 




330 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

York City ; the Canal reduced the cost to $20. The cheap 
freight rate caused trade in great volumes to flow toward 
the Canal. The grain and fruit of Western New York were 
no longer sent to Baltimore or Philadelphia, but were shipped 
to iSfew York City. Within a year after the Canal was opened 
19,000 boats loaded with lumber, grain, furs, and various other 
kinds of freight were counted as they passed West Troy on 
their way to New York. But the Canal was not entirely given 
up to carrying freight, for there were special boats, known as 
packets, upon which passengers could travel comfortably and 
at cheap rates. The journey from New York to Buffalo re- 
quired six days and cost $18, including berth and meals. The 
Canal made New York City the commercial center of the 
United States, and it caused western New York to " blossom 
as the rose," as Clinton prophesied it would. Utica, Syracuse, 
Rochester, and Buffalo, mere villages when the Canal was 
opened, had grown by 1840 to be flourishing cities. 

Moreover the influence of the Erie Canal extended far be- 
yond the State of New York. The westward moving packets 
carried emigrants — most of them being from New England 
or New York — who settled the country bordering on the 
Great Lakes, with the result that after the Canal was opened 
northern Ohio rapidly filled up with settlers. By 1840 Cleve- 
land was a bustling city and Toledo a thriving town. 

Great numbers of those who went out by the Canal made, 
their way to Michigan Territory,^ where the forests were al- 
most as unbroken and untrodden as they were when explored 
by the followers of Champlain two hundred years before. 
At the time the Erie Canal was opened there were probably 
not more than ten thousand inhabitants in all the Michigan 
country. The only place of any importance was Detroit, and 
it was only a small fur-trading station. But after the immi- 
grants from New York and New England began to pour into 
the Michigan country the population of the Territory increased 

1 In 1805 the lower peninsula of Michigan was cut off from Indiana Territory 
and organized as Michigan Territory. When Michigan was admitted as a State 
the upper peninsula was added to it. 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 331 

by leaps and bounds, jumping from 8,000 in 1820 to 32,000 
in 1830. By 1837 it was nearly 100,000, and in that year 
Michigan was admitted as a State. 

But the new routes of transportation did much more than ^[l^^^ 
to build up the regions around the Great Lakes. The in- ^^^^f^ 
fluence of the Pennsylvania and Ohio systems of canals, and of 
the extended national road, was felt throughout all the North- 
west. Between 1820-1840 the combined population of Ohio, 



By permission of The Railway World 

Canal movements near Allegheny, Portage Railroad. 

Indiana, and Illinois increased nearly fourfold, having attained 
at the latter date nearly 3,000,000. Ohio ranked third in pop- 
ulation and was almost as populous as Pennsylvania. Thus, 
thanks to the new routes of transportation, the Middle West by 
1840 had risen to be almost an empire in itself. 

The rapid development around the Great Lakes and in the Trade 
States north of the Ohio between 1820 and 1840 was matched the 

West 

by a development equally rapid in the South and Southwest, and the 
The development of the South was due largely to the pres- 
ence of the steamboat upon Western waters and to the numer- 
ous navigable rivers which joined in commercial union the 
States of the Mississippi Valley and the States bordering on the 
Gulf. In the Gulf States cotton culture had become so profit- 
able that the planters desired to raise nothing but cotton ; their 
foodstuflfs and horses and cattle they preferred to buy out- 



332 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Exten- 
sion 
of 

Cotton 
Culture 



side of the South. In the States north of the Ohio there 
was a surplus of the products needed by Southern planters. 
Hence the grain-growing States supplied the wants of the cot- 
ton-growing States, which they were enabled to do by the 




Navigable Rivers about 1820. 

steamboat and the network of rivers. Vast quantities of pork, 
bacon, lard, beef, butter, cheese, corn, flour, and whisky were 
shipped from the Ohio Valley to the cotton States. 

Inasmuch as the Southern planters could secure from the 
outside the necessaries of life they were free to devote their 
energies to the raising of larger and larger quantities of cot- 
ton. The ambition of every planter was " to raise more cot- 
ton, to buy more negroes ; to raise more cotton, to buy more 
negroes." Under such conditions the area of cotton culture 
was of course constantly extended. The removal of the 
Indians (p. 320) threw open many millions of acres of 
good cotton-lands, which were soon filled up by plant- 
ers with their slaves. Between 1833 and 1840 more than 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 



332 



20,000,000 acres of public lands were sold in the cotton 
States. 

In 1836 the cotton kingdom was still further enlarged by Arkansas 
the admission of Arkansas. This Territory (p. 300) received 
an overflow population from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mis- 
souri, and its growth was rapid. Its soil was adapted to the 
raising of cotton and, by the terms of the ]\Iissouri Compro- 
mise, it could become slave soil. So, it was admitted as a 
slave State, being regarded as an offset to Michigan, which was 
about to come in as a free State. 

108. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. 

Commercial progress between 1820 and 1840 consisted chiefly ^^® 
in the development of an inland trade. To understand the ments 
movements of commerce at this time we must begin with the ^^^^^ 
trade situation at the South. The planters sold their cotton 
to the New England and Middle States and to Europe and 
bought from the West its surplus of agricultural products. 
This surplus in some years amounted to as much as $100,000,- 
000. With the money which they received from the South the 




View of Cincinnati (about 1830). 

Western people bought the manufactures of the East. So, by 
1840 the South was getting rich selling its cotton to the East ; 
the West was getting rich by selling its grain to the South ; 



334 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

and the East was getting rich by selHng its wares to the 
South and the West. Between the East and the West trade 
moved for the most part in one direction. The Erie and Penn- 
sylvania Canals carried great quantities of Eastern manufac- 
tures to the West, but produce from the W^est did not begin to 
move to the East in large volumes until railroads had been built 
over the Alleghanies, and this was considerably after 1840. 
Foreign Foreign commerce between 1820 and 1840 made no such 

merce progress as was made by the inland trade. The Embargo and 
the War of 1812 had inflicted injuries upon it that it took 
many years to recover from. In 1830 the combined value of 
our exports and imports was considerably less than in 1800 
(p. 248), and it was not until 1840 that our foreign trade 
passed the $200,000,000 mark, our imports being at that time 
a little less than $100,000,000 and our exports a little more than 
$100,000,000. More than eighty per cent, of our exports con- 
sisted of agricultural products, and three-fourths of all the 
agricultural products exported consisted of cotton. So in 1840 
our foreign commerce depended almost wholly upon the prod- 
ucts of the farm. Less than ten per cent, of what we had to 
sell abroad consisted of manufactured articles. 
The Nevertheless, by 1840 manufacturing in the United States 

Factory . ' j ~r o 

System was m a most flourishing condition. The Embargo, the War 
of 1812, and the successive protective tariffs encouraged the 
establishment of manufactures, and the ever growing demand 
for goods in the South and West kept the wheels of the fac- 
tories turning. We saw (p. 247) that in 1800 the effects of 
the industrial revolution were beginning to be felt in the United 
States, and that at least one factory had been built. By 1830 
the factory system ^ had secured a firm foothold and by 1840 
factory-made articles w^ere forcing from the market nearly 
every class of articles manufactured in the household. And 
the American factory readily attained a high degree of efii- 

1 " By the factory system is meant the concentration of all the processes of 
manufacturing in a factory involving their withdrawal from the hou!;ehold and 
shop where they had been previously carried on; it involves also the organiza- 
tion of the workers under skilled management, for stipulated wages and fixei 
hours." (I£. C. Bogart.) 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 335 

ciency. A writer describing our cotton-manufactures in 1840 
said of Lowell, Massachusetts : " Here the factory system is 
perhaps in a more perfect operation than in any other part 
of the United States. Here are the largest establishments, the 
most perfect arrangement, and the richest corporations. And 
it may without fear of contradiction be asserted that the fac- 
tories at Lowell produced a greater quantity of yarn and cloth 
from each spindle and loom (in a given time) than is produced 
in any other factory without exception in the world." 

The three most important manufacturing industries between ^°^^°^ 
1830 and 1840 were those of cotton, wool, and iron. In 1830 
the United States was second only to England in the amount 
of cotton consumed. A table ^ giving statistics of cotton-man- 
ufacturing in 1831 shows that of the 33,000 looms in the whole 
country more than half were in New England. The same 
table shows that the labor conditions in the factories were by 
no means creditable. Of the 60,000 persons employed in the 
cotton-mills more than 40,000 were women or children under 
12 years of age. Of the 8,500 persons thus employed in Rhode 
Island more than 3,000 were women who worked for $2.20 a 
week, and nearly 3,500 were children under twelve who worked 
for $1.50 a week. 

The manufacturing of woolen goods, like that of cotton wooien 
goods, was stimulated by the Embargo and fostered by the 
protective tariff, but it did not keep pace with the cotton-manu- 
facturing. Although improved machinery was brought into 
use in the manufacture of woolens, and although the tariff on 
woolens was raised from time to time, it was a long time 
before the American woolens could compete successfully with 
the English product. In 1820, the value of the product of 
American woolens was $19,000,000; twenty years later the 
product was $20,000,000. 

Compared with the manufacture of iron this was a slow rate iron 
of progress. In 1820 the output of iron was 20,000 tons; in factures 
1840 it was 315,000 tons. This increase was due both to bet- 
ter processes of manufacturing and to a more lively demand. 

1 See Callander, Economic History of the United States, p. 420. 



336 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Indus- 
trial 

Independ- 
ence 



About 1830 the hot-air blast began to be used in the smelting 
of iron, and in 1837 anthracite coal was first used as a fuel 
in the furnaces for smelting. These improvements were 
timely, for about 1835 iron began to be in great demand for 
railroad purposes. 

Of course, besides cotton, wool, and iron there were by 
1840 other manufactures, many of them in a prosperous con- 
dition. For the year 1840 the census reported our manufac- 
turing at nearly half a billion of dollars. Indeed by 1840 we 
had almost passed from a state of dependence to a state of inde- 
pendence in respect to manufacturing. 



Free 

Schools 

North 

and 

South 



Educa- 
tion 
in the 
West 



109. EDUCATION AND LITERATURE. 

But it was not only material progress we were making in 
1840. Men were now giving attention to higher things, and 
a desire for more education and more culture was showing 
itself in all parts of the country. Statesmen were beginning 
to realize that in a democracy citizens must be educated and in 
a number of States a system of popular education had been 
established. About 1837 Horace Mann began to urge upon 
the people of Massachusetts and other New England States 
the necessity of spending more money upon their schools and 
of employing better teachers. INIann's efforts were appre- 
ciated, and it was not long before there was a general im- 
provement in public education throughout all New England. 
The Middle and Southern States were also advancing in mat- 
ters of public education. In the State of New York there 
were in 1830 more than 9,000 school districts and nearly 500,- 
000 pupils. In Pennsylvania a common-school system was es- 
tablished by law in 1834. Maryland and Virginia and other 
Southern States had made provisions by law for public educa- 
tion, but many years were yet to pass before the South began 
to enjoy a complete system of free schools. 

In the West popular education had made but little headway 
by 1840, yet the foundations of a free-school system had been 
laid. In the maintenance of their schools the people of the 
\\''est were helped by liberal gifts of the public lands. In the 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 



237 



Ordinance of 1787 it was provided that in the government of 
the Northwest Territory education was to be encouraged 
(p. 209), and this provision was faithfully carried out. When 
a State entered the Union one section (No. 16) of the public 
domain of every township — one square mile in every thirty- 
six — was set aside for public schools. After 1800 every 




Girard Collegre in 1840. 

State — with the exception of Maine, Texas, and West Vir- 
ginia — when admitted received at least two townships — sev- 
enty-two square miles — of land for the purpose of founding 
a State university. These school lands were given to the 
States for school purposes, and when they were sold to private 
purchasers the money received for them was invested, the 
interest being spent from year to year in supporting the schools. 
These land grants for schools encouraged the people of the 
West to foster education from the beginning. Thus in 18 16 
the people of Indiana in their constitution provided that " it 
shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law 
for a general system of education, ascending in regular grada- 
tion from township schools to a State university where tuition 
shall be gratis and equally open to all." The lawmakers of 
Indiana carried out the provision of their constitution and in 
good time Indiana had a complete free-school system extend- 



338 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Litera- 
ture 



ing from the primary school to the university. And so it was 
in almost all the States west of the Alleghanies : by 1840 they 
were all laying the foundation of a complete system for free 
education/ 

Along with this more general diffusion of knowledge there 
came a greater and wider demand for good reading. Accord- 
ingly there came to the front a group of writers, whose works 
won for American literature an imperishable fame. In 1809 
Irving published his inimitable Knickerbocker's History of 
Nezv York and eight years later Bryant surprised the literary 
world with his Thanatopsis. Cooper began to publish in 182 1, 
Hawthorne in 1825, Poe in 1829, Whittier in 1831, Longfel- 
low and Prescott in 1833, Bancroft in 1834, Emerson and 
Holmes in 1836, Lowell in 1841, and Parkman in 1847. 



Social 
Reforms 



Dorr's 
Kebel- 
lion 



no. SOCIAL BETTERMENT. 

The progress made in education between 1820 and 1840 was 
only one of many achievements along the line of social better- 
ment. During this period societies were formed for advanc- 
ing the cause of temperance ; for relieving the sufferings of 
the poor ; for securing the proper treatment of the insane ; 
for preventing the causes of pauperism; for reforming juve- 
nile delinquents; for the abolition of imprisonment for debt. 

In some cases the agitation for reform resulted in consid- 
erable trouble. In Rhode Island many of the people became 
dissatisfied because the constitution of the State did not 
permit a man to vote unless he owned real estate worth at 
least $134 or paid a yearly rent of at least $7. As this prop- 
erty qualification excluded from the suffrage a large proportion 
of the men of voting age, efforts were made in 1841 to change 
the constitution, but those in authority stubbornly resisted 

1 Among the private institutions of learning established during this period were 
Amherst, Hamilton, Oberlin, Randolph-Macon, Haverford, De Pauw, Knox, 
Lafayette, Wabash, and Marietta Colleges,, and Tulane, Wesleyan, and New York 
Universities. In 183: Stephen Girard of Philadelphia left a great amount of 
money for the founding of the famous orphan school which bears the name of 
Girard College. The University of Virginia, founded in 1819, owes its existence 
to the efforts of Thomas Jefferson. 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 339 

change. The malcontents elected as governor Thomas W. 
Dorr, who attempted to take possession of the State govern- 
ment by force, but before there was any bloodshed. Dorr's 
followers deserted him and he was arrested and imprisoned. 
Dorr was soon pardoned, however, and in 1843 the restric- 
tions upon the suffrage were in part removed. 

In New York the tenants of the Van Rensselaer estates on Anti- 
the Hudson (p. 105) complained bitterly because they were Troubles 
compelled to pay their rents in the products of the farms in- 
stead of in cash, and because they paid all the local and State 
taxes while the owners paid none. In the agitation for relief 
the tenants in some cases resorted to lawlessness. Most of 
the reforms for which the anti-renters clamored were secured 
by the new constitution which New York adopted in 1846. 

It was about this time that labor unions began to thrive. Labor 

° ... Associa- 

As the factory system developed, workingmen organized for tions 
the protection of their interests, and by 1825 most of the trades 
had their associations. In 1833 twenty-two labor societies par- 
ticipated in a parade in New York city. The chief aim of these 
associations was to improve the conditions of the working 
classes. The societies had benefit funds for the sick and for 
those out of work and on strike. They demanded a ten- 
hour day and insisted upon the establishment of free schools 
for all children. 

In some cases the reform movements of the period had for sociaustic 

. . . Move- 

their aim the reorganization of society on a socialistic or com- ments 
munistic basis. -In 1825 Robert Owen, a rich manufacturer of 
England, purchased a tract of 30,cxx) acres along the Wabash 
River and established the community known as New Har- 
mony. To his community Owen invited all industrious and 
well-disposed people who desired to test the socializing potency 
of human brotherhood. His aim was to found a community 
in which property was to be held in common. About 900 
people gathered at New Harmony in response to Owen's in- 
vitation and began the experiment of communistic life. But 
I after three years of trial the comrnunity dissolved. Owen ex- 
plained the failure as follows : " There was not disinterested 



340 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

industry ; there was not mutual confidence ; there was not prac- 
tical experience ; there was not union of action because there 
was not unanimity of counsel. These were the points of dif- 
ference and dissension, the rock upon which the social bark 
struck and was wrecked." In 1842 another cooperative ex- 
periment was tried on the lirook Farm just outside of Bos- 
ton. This farm was owned l)y about 100 shareholders, among 
whom were such men as Theodore Parker, Charles A. Dana, 
and George William Curtis. The shareholders, even the most 
famous, took part in the manual labor of the farm, and dined 
in a common central hall. But Brook Farm succeeded little 
better than New Harmony. Yet, although these experiments 
accomplished but little, they nevertheless were in harmony 
with the humanizing spirit of the time ^ and they marked the 
beginnings of the socialistic propaganda in America. 
The The most important of all the reform movements of the 

tion period was that which had for its aim the complete abolition 

ment xft slavery. Long before this time there had been manifested 

in all parts of the country considerable sentiment against slav- 
ery, and movements had been set on foot to cure some of its 
evils. Societies had been organized for the purpose of secur- 
ing the gradual emancipation of the slaves and there was a 
movement for transporting the negroes to Africa and organiz- 
ing them into colonies. The ])ur])ose of these earlier move- 
ments was to ameliorate the conditions of the slaves rather 
than to abolish slavery. But the purpose of the abolition 
movement was to wipe slavery from the face of the earth, 
to destroy it root and branch, and to destroy it immedi- 
ately. 

1 The United States was not the only country over which during this period 
there swept a wave of reform. " It was a time," says Woodrow Wilson, " when 
the world at large was quivering under the impact of new forces, both moral and 
intellectual. The year 1830 marks not only a period of sharp political revolution 
in Europe, but also a season of awakened social conscience everywhere. Nowhere 
were the new forces more profoundly felt than in England. ... In i8-'9 Catholic 
emancipation was effected; in 1832 the first reform bill [a law providing for a 
better representation in Parliament] was passed; in 1833 slavery was abolished 
throughout the British empire; in 1834 the system of poor relief was reformed; 
in 1835 the long needed reconstitution of the government of municipal corpora- 
tions was accomplished." 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 341 

The greatest leader of the abolitionists was William Lloyd wiiuam 
Garrison,^ one of the boldest and most successful of agitators Garrison 
the world has ever seen. In 1831 Garrison began the publica- 
tion of the Liberator. In the first number of this paper he 
wrote these words : " I will be as harsh as the truth and as un- 
compromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to 
think or speak or write with moderation. No, no ! Tell a man 
whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ; . . . tell the 
mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which 
it has fallen, but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like 
the present ! I am in earnest ! I will not equivocate ; I will not 
excuse ; I will not retreat a single inch ; and I will be heard." 

Garrison's words were not overbold. He was heard and The 

Work 

under his leadership the abolition movement grew rapidly, of the 

\ . . Abolition- 

In 183s there were m the North — the section to which the ists 
movement was confined — about 200 abolition societies ; by 
1840 there were 2,000 of these societies. In the beginning 
the abolitionists stood for a despised cause and few men of 
prominence joined the movement. In some places abolitionists 
were so unpopular that they were subjected to persecution. 
Frequently their meetings were broken up. Garrison himself 
was set upon by a mob in the streets of Boston and treated 
in a shameful manner. In Alton, Illinois, Elijah Lovejoy, 
the editor of an abolition paper, was brutally murdered. This 
treatment of the abolitionists was due in part to their ultra- 
radicalism, for devotion to their cause animated them with 
a spirit of lawlessness ; they were for liberating the slaves 
in spite of the Constitution and in spite of the law. Garrison 
flouted the Constitution and proclaimed it a covenant with 
death and an agreement with hell. The abolitionists in their 
efforts to strengthen their cause and spread their doctrine 

1 Another noted pioneer in the abolition movement was Benjamin Lundy, who 
as early as 1821 began to publish at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, the Genius of Uni- 
versal Emancipation, a periodical devoted to the cause of abolition. Afterward 
Lundy moved to Baltimore, where Garrison, in 1829, joined him as assistant 
editor of the Genius. The articles in the Genius were so radical that they created 
a bitter spirit in Baltimore. Lundy soon moved to Washington, where his paper 
in a few years failed. 



342 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

resorted to various methods of agitation. They printed 
books illustrated with pictures showing the horrors of 
slavery; they sent petitions to State legislatures and to 
Congress asking that slavery be abolished ; they founricd 
abolition newspapers ; they flooded the mails with abolition 
literature. The Southern slaveholders, fearing that abolition 
newspapers falling into the hands of slaves might in- 
cite them to insurrection ^ protested bitterly against the 
use of the mails for carrying abolition publications, 
but the post-office department failed to come to their relief. 
The petitions to Congress asking for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia led (1836) to the pas- 
sage of a " gag " resolution which had for its purpose the 
stifling of all discussion on the subject of slavery. The 
resolution provided that petitions relating to slavery should 
be laid on the table without further debate. This rule was 
fiercely attacked by John Ouincy Adams — then a member 
of Congress — who regarded it as a violation of the Constitu- 
tion (133). AdaiHs spoke against the resolution again and 
again and in 1844 it was abandoned. The abolitionists did not 
organize as a political party, yet as a result of the abolition 
propaganda a Liberty party was organized. In 1840 the presi- 
dential candidate of this party received over 7.000 votes ; in 
1844 the vote of the Liberty party was over 60,000. In the 
meantime the abolitionists went on urging their views upon 
the country regardless of all parties. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The Erie Canal: Halsey V, 161-175; Turner, 32-36; iMcMaster 
V, 132-136. 

2. The first American locomotive: Halsey VI, \2~16. 

1 In 1831, Nat Turner, a slave who could read and write, gathered together a 
band of twenty or thirty negroes and attacked the whites living near Cross Keys 
in Virginia and killed fifty-five persons — men, women, and children. Forces were 
hurried to the scene of the uprising and the insurrection was quickly quelled. 
Turner was captured and executed. The abolitionists were charged with having 
incited this insurrection, it being alleged that Turner had received a copy of the 
Liberator. There is no evidence, however, that this was true. Nevertheless, the 
Turner uprising did much to embitter the South against the abolitionists. 



PROGRESS BETWEEN 1820 AND 1840 343 

3. A period of Material development: Wilson, 102-115. 

4. Beyond the Mississippi in 1832 (Washington Irving) : Halsey VI, 
1 21-129. 

5. The West (1820-1830): Turner, 84-110; Bogart, 189-197. 

6. The rise of the factory system in the United States : Bogart, 
162-173; Coman, 152-156. 

7. Educational development: Dexter, go-113. 

8. Education: Forman, 351-358. 

9. The early labor movement : Bogart, 253-255 ; McMaster VI, 
101-102, 181-182, 220-223. 

10. The Abolitionists: Halsey VI, 50-64; McMaster' VI, 178-180, 
274-281. 

11. Dates for the chronological table: 1825, 1831, 1836. 

12. For the table of States: Michigan, Arkansas. 

13. Tlie Locomotive: Forman, Useful Iiiz'cntio)is, 180-189. 

14. What was Fourierism? Sketch the life of Edgar Allan Poe. 
Give an account of the public services of Dorothy Dix. Give an ac- 
count of the " Toledo War." State the views of three northern men — 
Blaine, Roosevelt, and Carl Schurz — in regard to the Abolitionists. 
What State undertook the building of railroads in the early days of 
railroad construction? Who was Jenny Lind? Give an account of 
her first concert in New York. Give an account of the reforms made 
in spelling by Noah Webster and of the books prepared by him. 
Read in the class Garrison's own account of how he was mobbed. 

15. Special Reading. Thomas M. Cooley, Michigan. J. H. Reynolds, 
Makers of Arkansas. A. B. Hulbert, Great American Canals. 



XXXI 

THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 

During the two administrations following the Jacksonian Era, pres- 
sure of population westward and hunger for new land resulted in carry- 
ing our flag to the Pacific and in adding to our territory an area of more 
than a million square miles. The chief aim of this chapter will he to 
give an account of how this enormous acquisition was made. 

III. TYLER AND THE WHIGS. 

Harrison was sworn into office March 4, 184 1, but before 
his administration had gained any headway a brief ilhiess re- 
suked in his death (April 4, 1841). Accordingly, John Tyler 
became President. This was the first time in our history that a 

Vice-President succeeded to the 
Presidential office and Tyler's 
task was a difficult one. His 
chief trouble was with the Whigs 
who had elected him. Tyler had 
been nominated by the Whigs 
mainly because of his hostility to 
Andrew Jackson, yet as far as his 
own political beliefs were con- 
cerned he was as good a Democrat 
as Jackson himself. So, when the 
Whigs in Congress came forward 
with a bill to incorporate a Bank 
of the United States. Tyler found 
himself at odds with the law-making branch. Congress (in 
1841) passed the ImII, and Tyler vetoed it. The Whigs had 
control of Congress and they had the advantage of the power- 
ful leadership of Clay, but they could not muster a two-thirds 

344 




John Tyler. 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 345 

majority to pass the bill over the President's veto. Still, they 
did not despair ; after their first failure they passed a new 
bill which they thought would meet with the approval of 
the President. But in this they were disappointed; Tyler 
vetoed the second bill and again his veto could not be over- 
come. 

This action caused a breach between Tyler and the Whigs. 
Every member of the Cabinet except Webster ^ resigned and 
the Whig members of Congress issued a formal address to 
the people in which they declared that ' all political connection 
between them and John Tyler was at an end from that day 
forth.' This rupture resulted in the demoralization of the 
Whigs and in the undoing of Tyler's administration. Tyler 
turned to the Democrats for support, but they would not trust 
him. So, the Whig victory of 1840 came to naught and Tyler, 
on the threshold of his administration, was left politically 
stranded, — a President without a party. 

112. THE TEXAN QUESTION. 

Although the Democrats could not trust Tyler they could 
use him to pull their political chestnuts out of the fire. This 
they did in connection with the Texan question, a question 
that had been before the American people for many years and 
that by Tyler's time was demanding a solution. 

In the treaty made with Spain in 181Q (p. 200) assurance The 

. , . , . „ Republic 

was given to the United States that grants of land in Texas to of 
American citizens could be regarded as valid. This encouraged 
Americans to settle in Texas in large numbers. As early as 
1828 the population of Texas consisted of twelve thousand 
Americans and only three thousand Mexicans. Texas was now 
one of the States of Mexico, a country which had revolted from 
Spain in 1820 and had organized as an independent federal 

1 Webster, who was the Secretary of State, remained in the cabinet in order 
to settle with Great Britain the question of the true boundary between the 
northeastern States and Canada. There had been a bitter controversy between 
Maine and Canada over some disputed territory and in 1839 actual hostilities 
seemed likely. War, however, was averted, and in 1842 the boundary line was 
fixed by an agreement known as the Webster-Ashburton treaty. 



346 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



republic. The constitution of Texas prohibited slavery, but 
in spite of this ])rohibition slave-owners from the United 
States kept moving into the State with their slaves. In 1835 
there arose between Texas and the Mexican government a 
friction which led to a struggle for the absolute independence 
of Texas. In this struggle Americans were the allies and 
tlie chief reliance of the Texans.^ In April 1836, General 
Sam Houston, an American, led an army of Texan adherents 
against the Mexican leader Santa Anna, defeating him at San 
Jacinto. Texas was now organized as an independent re- 
public and in 1837 its independence was recognized by the 
United States, England, France, and Belgium. Mexico, how- 
ever, refused recognition. In the constitution of the new re- 
public of Texas slavery was established as a lawful institu- 
tion. This could hardly have been otherwise, for Texas by 
1836 had become an American community in which the pre- 
dominating influence was exerted by slaveholders. 

The peo])le of Texas did not desire to remain independent. 
As Americans they wished Texas to be annexed to the United 
States. But annexation was bound to meet with opposi- 
tion, for Texas was a region larger than France and to ad- 
mit it to the Union would enormously extend the area of 
slavery, and would take from the North the advantage which 
it had secured by the Missouri Compromise. The question 
of annexation was presented to Jackson but he postponed 
action in regard to it. Overtures for annexation were made 
to \'an I'uren, but they were declined. Tyler, however, fa- 
vored the project of annexation. In April 1844, he sub- 
mitted to the Senate a treaty of annexation which he had 
negotiated with the Texas authorities. But he was unaJ^le 
to secure the ratification of the treaty: it was rejected in 
the Senate by a decisive vote. 

1 During this war occurred the siege of the Alamo, a fort at San Antonio, 
where a band of about 140 Texans resisted a Mexican force of ten times their 
number and all but six perished rather than surrender. The six who surrendered 
were murdered by the Mexicans; not a man of tlie garrison was left alive. Among 
the dead were David Crockett, a famous frontiersman, and James Bowie, the 
inventor of the deadly bowie-knife. The heroic defense of the fort gave the 
Toxans the war cry, " Remember the Alamo! " 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 347 

But Tyler went far enough with annexation to make it ^^^gti^n 
the leading issue in the election of 1844. In that year the °fg^^ 
Whigs unanimously nominated Henry Clay for President. 
Their platform declared for a protective tariff and for a 
single term for the presidency, but in regard to the Texas 
question it was silent. The Democrats, after adopting a rule 
making a two-thirds vote necessary for a choice,^ nominated 
James K. Polk of Tennessee. The platform of the Democrats 
in regard to annexation was as follows : " Resolved, That 
our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and 
unquestionable ; that no portion of the same ought to be 
ceded to England or any other power and that the reoccu- 
pation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the 
earliest practicable period are great American measures which 
this convention recommends to the cordial support of the 
Democracy of the Union." Here w^as an appeal to the ex- 
pansion sentiment which was strong both at the North and 
at the South. The people of the North wanted Oregon; the 
people of the South wanted Texas. The success of the Demo- 
crats, therefore, would bring satisfaction to both sections. 
Clay was at the height of his popularity but he blew hot and 
cold on the Texas question and his vacillation cost him many 
votes both in the North and in the South. In New York 
the Liberty party drew away from the Whigs enough votes 
to give that State to the Democrats. If Clay had carried 
New York he would have been elected, but as it was Polk 
was victorious. 

Tyler regarded the results of the election as a mandate Annexa, 
from the people to proceed with measures for the annexation com- 

. pleted 

of Texas. Accordingly, he urged Congress to admit Texas 
to the Union by the method of a joint resolution of both 
houses. Congress, acting upon his suggestion, passed, in Janu- 
ary 1845, ^ resolution providing that the territory rightfully 
belonging to the Republic of Texas might be erected into 

1 This rule was adopted for the purpose of defeating Van Buren, who was able 
to secure the votes of ? majority of the delegates, but who could not secure 
two-thirds of the votes. 



348 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



a new State to be called the State of Texas, and that after a 
government republican in form (120) had been established 
by the people of Texas it might be admitted as one of the 
States of the Union. The resolution further jjrovided that 
additional States not exceeding four in number might be 
formed from the territory of Texas with its consent. As 
the Texans were eager to enter the Union there was little 
delay in completing the work of annexation. By October 
1845, t'le peo])le of Texas liad ratified a State constitution 
and on December 29, 1845, 'i'exas was admitted as a State. 



113. THE OREGON QUESTION. 

At the very beginning of his administration (March 4, 1845) 
Polk entered upon the policy of expansion which had been 
the keynote of the campaign.^ The annexation of Texas 
having been accomplished by Tyler, Polk directed his at- 
tention to the Oregon question. We saw (p. 290) that in 
1818 the United States and England entered into an agree- 
ment for the joint occupation of the Oregon country. In 
1828 this agreement was indefinitely continued, but the joint 
occupation might be terminated by a twelve months' notice 
by either party at any time. But the settlement of Oregon 
by Americans soon rendered joint occupation impracticable. 
By 1835 small bodies of pioneers had found their way to 
Oregon and by the time of Polk there was a steady stream of 
emigration to the far-ofif country. An eye-witness at Inde- 
pendence, in Kansas, thus describes the trains of emigrants 
as they moved along in the spring of 1845, making their slow 
journey to the Oregon country: ''Even as we write," says 
he, '* we see a long train of wagons coming through our streets. 
As they go they are hailed with joyous shouts of welcome by 

1 The subject cf the tariff was not very prominent in the campaign, yet Polk 
secured an important piece of tariff legislation. This was the Walker tariff of 
J846, which lowered the duties on many commodities and fixed the rates with the 
aim of raising revenue without regard to protection. While it was not a free 
trade measure pure and simple, it was nevertheless a step in that direction. The 
Walker tariff remained in force until 1857 when another reduction was made in 
the rates. 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 



349 




James K. Polk. 



their fellow-travelers. Looking out at the passing train we 

see, among the foremost, a comfortable covered wagon with 

one of its sheets so drawn aside as 

to reveal a quiet-looking woman 

seated inside, and sewing. The 

bottom of the wagon is carpeted; 

at one end is a bureau and mirror ; 

near by are three chairs, and hang- 
ing along the sides are articles of 

ornament and use. Then comes 

team after team, each drawn by 

six or eight stout oxen driven by 

stout sons of Anak, not one of 

them under six-feet-two in his 

stockings. We are in a perfect 

Oregon fever. Then comes stock of every description — 

negroes, horses, mules, cows, oxen, and there seems to be no 

end of them. Not less than two or three thousand people 

are gathered at this point, ready to 
set off over the broad prairie about 
May tenth. A train of two 
hundred wagons left our town, 
on Tuesday and Wednesday 
last, bound for- 
Oregon. Yester- 
day twenty-eight 
passed this town. 
They came from 
about Fort Madi- 
son, Iowa. Two 
hundred more 
have crossed the 
Missouri at St. 
Joseph and fifty 
The Oregon country. ^^^e said to be 

crossing at the Lower Ferry. May fourth, the advance guard 
set off from Independence hi four cotnpanies. Men and boys 




350 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

nunil)cre(l four hundred and two ; women and girls, three 
hundred and thirty-four; the wagons one hundred and sixty- 
five, and the horses, mules, oxen, and cattle over three thou- 
sand. One who met the great body of emigrants after they 
had set out on their long journey declares that the trail from 
fifteen miles beyond the Big Blue to the State line was crowded 
with emigrants, and that he passed five hundred wagons 
and the usual proportion of men, women, children, and cattle.'' ^ 
Joint By 1845 nearly 10,000 Americans had settled m the Oregon 

OCCU- ' , . r 1 ■ , 1 1 

pancy couutry and it was necessary tor the region to have a regular 

nated and orderly government. Polk was eager and ready to give 

them one. In his first annual message he recommended that 
Great Britain be notified that the agreement of joint occu- 
pancy should be terminated and that the jurisdiction of the 
United States government should be extended over the citizens 
of the United States in Oregon. Congress acceded to Polk's 
plans ; the notice was given and the federal government as- 
sumed authority in the Oregon country. 
The Polk also quickly settled the vexed question of the Oregon 

Boun'-'^ boundary. Our government claimed as the northern boundary 
of our territory in Oregon the parallel of 54° 40', and in the 
campaign of 1844 the cry had been " fifty- four forty or fight." 
The British government claimed the Columbia River as the 
southern boundary of British territory in Oregon. The ques- 
tion was settled by a compromise: it was agreed that the 
dividing line between American and British territory in Oregon 
should be the forty-ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains 
to the middle of the channel that separates Vancouver Island 
from the mainland, and thence should run southward along 
the middle of the channel and Fuca's Strait to the Pacific. 
In dealing with the Oregon question, Polk acted in a most 
energetic manner and in the opinion of most Englishmen his 
action was arbitrary and unjust. British resentment at his 
course was at one time so bitter that war was threatened. 
Happily, however, the two nations did not come to blows. 

1 See McMaster, Vol. VII, p. 411. 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 351 



114. THE ACQUISITION OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO. 
An ardent expansionist, Polk was not content with secur- Poik 

and 

ing a firm title to the Oregon country. He desired as a further caii- 
acquisition to American territory the Mexican -province of 
California. Two things encouraged him to believe that this 
acquisition could be peacefully made. First there were claims 
amounting to several millions of dollars which citizens of the 
United States held against the Mexican government. These 
claims were overdue, and there was no money in the Mexican 
treasury with which they could be paid. Second, in the joint 
resolution which annexed Texas it was stipulated that the 
boundaries between Mexico and Texas should be adjusted by 
the government of the United States. In these claims and in 
the adjustment of the boundaries Polk saw his opportunity. 
He would take up with Mexico the question of the claims 
and at the same time the question of boundaries. Since Mexico 
could not settle the claims in cash he would allow her to 
pay in land. The boundaries therefore could be so extended 
as to include California. If this could be done Polk was will- 
ing to pay the claims and give to Mexico a large sum of money 
in addition. 

It was not only the impulse for expansion that urged Polk Eng- 

to the acquisition of California. The President feared that Designs 

r . . upon 

if the United States did not take the province some foreign Caii- 

power would. California at the time was inhabited by only 
a handful of Spaniards and was wholly unable to defend 
itself. Nor could it be successfully defended by the weak 
and distant Mexican government. It was therefore danger- 
ously exposed to the attack of any nation that might wish 
to possess it. Polk believed that Great Britain had designs 
upon California. His suspicion was based partly upon rumors 
and partly upon the fact that the British on the Pacific coast 
were acting in a mysterious manner. Polk was ready to op- 
pose Great Britain or any other power that might attempt 
to occupy California. " No future European colony or do- 
minion," he declared, " shall with our consent be planted or 



352 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Slidell's 
Mission 



The 

Declara- 
tion 
of 
War 



established on any part of the North American continent." 
In saying this he was of course only reasserting in a vigorous 
fashion the doctrine proclaimed by Monroe. 

In dealing with the California situation Polk allowed no 
grass to grow under his feet. In November 1845, ^'th the 
consent of his Cabinet, he despatched John Slidell to the 
city of Mexico for the purpose of renewing with the Mexican 
government the diplomatic relations which had been abruptly 
severed by Mexico immediately after Texas had been annexed. 
As soon as Slidell should be received as a representative, he 
was to take up with the Mexican government the subject 
of the claims and of the boundaries. He was to insist upon 
the Rio Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico 
and was to secure California, and possibly New Mexico, for 
the United States. For such a cession of territory the United 
States would pay the claims and as much as $25,000,000 in ad- 
dition. But Slidell did not gain a hearing. In some way 
the purport of his mission leaked out and when it became 
known that he was planning for the dismemberment of Mexico, 
the Mexican government peremptorily refused to receive him. 
In truth, public sentiment in Mexico was strongly against 
the United States and there was little chance of securing Cal- 
ifornia by peaceful means. " Be assured," wrote Slidell, 
" that nothing is to be done with those people until they shall 
have been chastised." 

Polk was ready to chastise them if that were necessary; 
for while he carried the " olive branch of peace " in one hand, 
he carried the sword in the other. He sincerely desired peace 
but at the very time that he w^as trying to secure California 
by diplomatic methods, he was preparing to take it by force 
if war resulted. And war did result. On May 9 (1846) Polk 
decided to ask Congress to declare war against Mexico on 
the grounds that Slidell had been refused a hearing. On 
May 10, however, news came that Mexicans had crossed the 
Rio Grande (April 24) and had killed a number of American 
soldiers. Here was a better excuse for declaring war. When 
giving to Congress (May 13) reasons for the war, Polk could 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 



353 



now say: " Mexico has passed the boundary of the United 
States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood 
upon American soil." Congress agreed with Polk and im- 
mediately declared war, asserting that war existed by the 
act of Mexico itself. 




T^O 200 



THE M.-N. WORKS 



Map of the war with Mexico. 



Polk went into the struggle with Mexico hoping to " conquer The 
a peace " by delivering a few sharp, decisive blows. But it War 
was by no means a little war that he had to fight. General 
Zachary Taylor was on the Rio Grande with an army at the 
outbreak of hostilities and he had already met the Mexicans 
in a battle at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma and had 



354 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



defeated them even before war had been formally declared. 
In September 1846, Taylor, after a hard fought battle, cap- 
tured the strongly fortified city of Monterey. In February 
1847, Taylor's army was attacked by Santa Anna at Buena 
Vista, but the Americans stubbornly held their ground. After 
the battle at Buena Vista the scene of the war shifted to Vera 
Cruz, where Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the 
American forces, landed in March with an army of 12,000 
men. After taking Vera Cruz (March 29) Scott began a 
march to the city of Mexico. By August 10 the Americans 
had fought their way through the mountain passes of Cerro 
Gordo and had come to Pueblo. Here the Mexicans were of- 
fered liberal terms of peace. But the ofifer was refused. The 
Mexicans rallied their forces for the further defense of their 
country. But it was of no use: Scott won victory after vic- 
tory. On September 8 he took Molino del Rey ; on September 

13 the strong fortress of Chapultepec fell; and on September 

14 the American army triumphantly entered the city of Mexico 
and raised the American 'flag. After the surrender of the 
capital city there was no further resistance by the Mexicans 
at any place ; Polk had conquered a peace.^ • 

California, the great prize for which the war was really 
fought, was taken almost before the war had actually 
begun.- As early as June 1846, troops were sent to take pos- 
session of New ]\Iexico and California. The conquest of 
these provinces was made without a struggle. " We simply 
marched," said one of the soldiers, " all over California from 
Sonoma to San Diego and raised the American flag without 
opix)sition or protest. We tried to find an enemy but could 
not." 



1 The Mexican War was a training school for many of the officers who later 
became leaders in the Civil War. Among those who rendered valuable service 
under Taylor and Scott in the Mexican campaign were: U. S. Grant, R. E. Lee, 
Jefferson Davis, T. J. (" Stonewall ") Jackson, J. E. Johnston, G. H. Thomas, 
Braxton Bragg, J. C. Pemberton, George B. McClellan, and H. W. Halleck. 

2 In June 1846, Colonel Stephen Kearny left Fort Leavenworth and marched 
to Santa Fe. After capturing that town and taking possession of all New 
Mexico, he marched on to California, where he found that the country had 
been won for the Americans by Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who was in com- 
mand of a small body of soldiers, and by Commodore Stockton, who was hovering 
off the Pacific coast with a few ships. 



THE GREAT WESTWARD EXTENSION 355 

The fruits of the peace which Polk had conquered were The 
seen in the treaty which was arranged in February 1848, at of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, a village near to the city of Mexico. By lupe 
the terms of the treaty a disputed portion of the Texas terri- 
tory — the part between the Nueces and the Rio Grande Rivers 
— New Mexico ^ and California were ceded to the United 
States. In consideration of this great extension of our 
boundaries the government of the United States undertook to 
pay the claims and also to pay in addition to the Republic 
of Mexico the sum of $15,000,000, — precisely the amount 
paid for Louisiana. Thus during the administrations of Tyler 
and of Polk we extended our boundaries to the Pacific and 
added to the United States more than a million square miles of 
territory.- Out of the possessions acquired during this period 
of expansion have been carved the States of Texas, Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, Utah, California, Nevada, New Mexico, 
Arizona, and parts of Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, and 
Colorado. 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The annexation of Texas: Garrison, 85-141; Wilson, 141-147; 
Halsey VII, 3-9. 

2. The Oregon question: Garrison, 157-173; McMaster VII, 411- 
414, 418-420, 532-534- 

3. The rupture with Mexico: McMaster VII, 432-447; Garrison, 
188-207; Wilson, 149-152. 

4. Conquering a peace : Hitchcock, 189-197, 208-230 ; Garrison, 228- 

253- 

5. The acquisition of California: McMaster VII, 464-471; Gaf' 
rison, 234-238; Halsey VII, S3-60. 

6. The Walker tariff: McMaster VII, 421-422; Bogart, 185-186; 
Garrison, 185-187. 

1 The area of New Mexico was increased in 1853 by the Gadsden Purchase 
(p- 367)- 

2 Polk was desirous of making even further additions to our possessions. In 
1848 he made overtures to the Spanish government regarding the annexation of 
Cuba, but was told that Spain would sooner see the island sunk in the ocean 
than see it transferred to any power. Accordingly, the idea of Cuban annexa- 
tion was temporarily abandoned. 



356 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



7. Isthmian diplomacy: Garrison, 285-293; McMaster VII, 572- 

577- 

8. The emigration that saved Oregon: Ilalscy VII, 10-13. 

9. Dates for the chronological table: 1842, 1846, 1848. 

10. Summarize the territorial acquisitions made between 1803 and 
1853. 

II Describe the " Aristook War." Describe the fall of the Alamo. 
Do you believe the Mexican war was unjust? Sketch the life of Jolm 
C. Fremont. Describe the battle of San Jacinto. Sketch the career 0/ 
Sam Houston. Who was Kit Carson? Give the history of the Bear 
Flag Republic. Explain the expression " manifold destiny " as ap- 
plied to American politics in the forties. 

12. Territorial Expansion. The territorial growtli of the United 
States is shown in the following table : 



Accession 



Thirteen original States. 
Louisiana Purchase . . . . 

Florida 

Texas 

Oregon 

Mexican Cession 

Gadsden Purchase 

Alaska 

Hawaii 

Guam 

Philippine Islands 

Porto Rico 

Virgin Island 



Total 



Date of 
Accession 



1803 
1819 
1845 
1846 
1848 
1853 
1867 
1898 
1899 
1899 
1899 
1917 



Area in 
Square Miles 



843,799 
890,921 
58,680 
389,616 
285,123 
526,444 

31-017 
590,884 

201 

119,542 

3,435 
138 



3,746,249 



13. Special Reading. Schouler, History of the United States, Vol. 
IV, Thomas Benton, Thirty Years' F/Vit'. R. S. Ripley, The War 
with Mexico. J. S. Reeves, American Diplomacy Under Tyler and Polk. 



XXXII 

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE EORTIES 
(1840-1850) 

In extending our boundaries to the Pacific, Tyler and Polk were only 
yielding to the irresistible force of the Westward Movement. At no 
time in our history, perhaps, had the wave of civilization moved west- 
ward with greater strength and swiftness than it was moving between 
1840 and 1850. During these years the population of the western 
country increased liy more than 2,000,000, and eight western communi- 
ties emerged from the wilderness and were organized either as States 
or Territories. What causes hastened this marvelous development? 
What States and Territories were created during the period and what 
were their historical beginnings? 

IIS. THE PREEMPTION ACT; AGRICULTURAL IMPLE- 
MENTS ; IMMIGRATION. 

Many things worked together to give strength to the West- The. 
ward Movement between 1840 and 1850. First, there was the tion^™^ 

Act 

lure held out to settlers by the Preemption Act which Congress of 
passed in 1841. Preemption acts had been passed as early 
as 1830, but the law of 1841 gave permanence to the preemption 
policy. It encouraged pioneers to push out into unoccupied 
lands and begin the actual work of settlement. By the law 
of 1841, if a settler entered upon a tract of land not greater 
than 160 acres, built himself a house, and began the tillage 
of the land, he was given the right of preemption ; that is, he 
had the first right against all comers of purchasing his tract 
from the government on the most favorable terms and at 
the established price, which was in most cases still $1.25 per 
acre (p. 279). Under the workings of this law the home- 
seeker could select an eligible tract of unoccupied land, im- 
prove it and feel assured that his land would not be sold away 

357 



Plow 



358 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

from him and that the labor bestowed upon his farm wojld 
not be lost. 
The Another thing that helped wonderfully in the development 

of the West at this period was the great improvement that 
was being made in the construction of agricultural implements. 
Efforts to improve the plow did not cease with the experi- 
ments of Jefferson and Newbold (p. 246). Ry 1825 Jethro 
Wood of Scipio, New York, had constructed an iron plow, 
the several parts of which — the point, the share, and mold- 
board — were so fastened together that when one piece wore 
out or was broken, it could be easily replaced by another. 
This plow became very popular and by 1840 it was driving out 




City of Chicago, 1845. 

the half-wooden, half-iron plows of the olden time. But it 
was of no use for farmers to raise more grain than they could 
reap. If the great prairies were to be plowed and planted 
there v>ould have to be a reaping-machine that would cut the 
grain faster than it could be cut with the scythe. Such a 
machine was given to the farmer by Cyrus McCormick of 
Rockbridge County, Virginia. In the summer of 1831 McCor- 
mick made a trial of a reaper which he and his father in- 
vented. With two horses he cut six acres of oats in an after- 
noon. " Such a thing," says Casson, " at the time was in- 
credible. It was equal to the work of six laborers with scythes 
or twenty-four peasants with sickles. It was as marvelous 
as though a man had walked down the street carrying a 




THE UNITED STATES IN 1840 




THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES 359 

dray horse on his back.'' In 1844 McCormick took a trip 
through the West. In Illinois he saw how badly the reaper 
was needed. He saw great fields of ripe wheat rotting be- 
cause there were not enough laborers to harvest the crops. 
The farmers had worked night and day and their wives and 
children had worked, but more grain had been raised than the 
scythe could possibly cut. So, McCormick in 1847 built a 
factory in Chicago and began to make reapers. In less than 
ten years nearly 25,000 of his machines had been sold. Along 
with the reaper came the threshing-machine, which by 1840 ^^® 
had come into general use. At first this machine only threshed j°| j^. 
out the grain, leaving grain, chaff, and straw mixed together, 
but by 1850 improvements had been made and the grain was 
separated from the chaff and straw. With the improved plow, 
and with the reaper and threshing-machine, the Frontier Line 
could be carried westward at a rate faster than it was ever 
carried before. 

But the thing that did most to push the Frontier Line west- condi- 

. ... tions 

ward at this period was immigration. In the early years of ravora- 
our national life immigration was very small. In the thirty ipmigra- 
years prior to 1820 hardly more than 200,000 aliens had sought 
homes in the United States, and in the fifty years prior to 
1840 fewer immigrants landed upon our shores than now 
land in a single year. But about 1840, conditions began to 
favor immigration. About this time it began to be easy for 
emigrants from Europe to reach America. By 1845 steam- 
ships were making regular trips across the Atlantic and the 
immigrants could make the long voyage in reasonable comfort 
and at little expense. Then, too, distress and political unrest 
in Europe gave an impulse to emigration. In parts of Ireland 
the potato was almost the only food of the people. " Whole 
generations grew up, lived, married, and passed away without 
ever having tasted flesh meat." In 1845, and in 1846 also, 
the potato crop in Ireland failed and the people were panic- 
stricken at the fear of hunger. So, the Irish in vast throngs 
emigrated to the United States. Moreover, in 1848, in most 
of the countries of Europe, especially in Germany, there were 



36o ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

political upheavals which resulted in sending large numbers 
of emigrants to America. 

These contributing forces raised the number of immigrants 
far beyond the highest point it had ever reached. Hitherto 
immigrants had come to America by the tens of thousands, 
but now they came by the hundreds of thousands. Between 
1845 and 1850 the average annual influx reached the startling 
number of 300,000. A large number of these newcomers re- 
mained in the East, but multitudes of them went directly to 
the western country, " the glory of the sunshine in their faces 
and the love of the big prairies in their hearts." 

116. ALONG THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI AND AROUND THE 
GREAT LAKES: IOWA; WISCONSIN. 

The scene of greatest development between 1840 and 1850 
was the country bordering upon the banks of the Mississippi 
and upon the shores of the Great Lakes. Into this region 
poured settlers not only from Europe, but from almost every 
part of the Union, especially from New England and the 
Middle States. The Iowa country was the first to be opened 
up. The settlement of this beautiful region did not begin 
early, because it was occupied by savage tribes. But piece 
by piece the redman lost his lands. In 1832 the national 
government bought from the Sacs and Foxes about 6,000,000 
acres lying west of the Mississippi and north of the Des Moines. 
In this tract — known as the Black Hawk Purchase — there 
were valuable deposits of lead, and as soon as the Indians 
were out of the way there was a rush for the lead 
mines. The settlement of the Iowa country now began in 
earnest. Dubuque was founded in 1833; Burlington in 1834; 
Davenport in 1836. In 1838 Iowa was given a territorial 
government and eight years later it entered the Union as a 
State, Iowa City being the first capital.' The rush to Iowa 
continued. Ferries were busy day and night carrying the 
pioneers across the Mississippi, and steamboats on the Ohio, 
the Mississippi, and the Missouri were packed with passengers 

1 In 1851 Des Moines was made the capital of Iowa. 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES 



361 



for Iowa. In ten years — between 1840 and 1850 — the pop- 
ulation of Iowa jumped from 40,000 to 200,000. 

But Wisconsin also had deposits of lead which were at- 
tractive to settlers, and after Black Hawk and his band of 
warriors had been defeated (in 1832) at Bad Axe, emigrants 
began to move into the Wisconsin country in great streams. 
They came by overland routes and by the Ohio and Mississippi. 
Thousands came by way of the Great Lakes in steamers that 



Wis- 
consin 




THE M. N; "WORKS, 



Along the Upper Mississippi and around the Great Lakes. 

sometimes were so crowded that the passengers were obliged 
to sleep on mattresses spread on the decks and dining-room 
floor. In 1836 Wisconsin was created a Territory, and in 
1839 the territorial legislature gathered for the first time in 
Madison, then a crude village in the heart of a great forest. 
The settlement of Milwaukee began in 1835. Within a year 
streets had been laid out, sixty houses had been built, a news- 
paper had been established and seven hundred people had 
chosen the place as a home. Emigration to Wisconsin con- 



362 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tinned to flow so strongly that by 1847 more than 200,000 
wliites had settled in the Territory. Wisconsin was now more 
than ready for Statehood. Accordingly, in 1848 it was given 
its present boundaries and was admitted into the Union. ^ 

117. ALONG THE PACIFIC COAST: OREGON; CALIFORNIA. 

Oregon lUit the tide of emigration in the forties flowed far beyond 

the shores of the Great Lakes and the banks of the Mississippi. 
To trace fully the course of the Westward Movement during 
this period we must go to the far-ofif Pacific Coast, and first 
to the Oregon country. We saw that when this region was 
acquired, emigrants were streaming into it by the thousands. 
A provisional government for Oregon had been formed several 
years before the boundary question had been settled. As early 
as 1843 the settlers in the Willamette \'alley met in a barn 
at Champoeg and drew up a plan for a temporary government 
which satisfied their needs for several years. But when it 
was definitely determined, in 1846, that Oregon was to be 
American territory, the settlers asked Congress for a per- 
manent government. Congress was slow to respond. The 
delay was due to the slavery question. Everybody was in favor 
of giving Oregon a territorial government but the Northern 
members of Congress wished to exclude slavery from the new 
Territory, while the Southern members wiere opposed to making 
any provision at all in regard to slavery. After a long and 
earnest struggle a bill was passed which gave Oregon a ter- 
ritorial government but declared that the Ordinance of 1787 
should be applied to the Territory. This, of course, had the 
eflfect of excluding, slavery from Oregon. 

1 The free States of Iowa and Wisconsin came in to offset the admission of 
Florida and Texas. In 1835 Florida Territory had a vast amount of trouble with 
the Seminoles, led by the chief Osceola, but after a long and expensive war the 
Indians were expelled. The people of Florida then began to seek admission into 
the Union. Congress, however, kept them waiting until Iowa was ready for 
admission. In 1845, by the same enabling act, both Florida and Iowa were ad- 
mitted. In December 1845, Texas was annexed (p. 348) and with its annexation 
the cotton kingdom bordering on the Gulf was rounded out and the limits of the 
area within which slavery was allowed was reached, for Texas was the last slave 
State to be admitted. 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES 363 

From Oregon we turn to her neighbor on the south. When The 

. ... . Cali- 

the spacious region of California came into our possession fomia 

. . . Missions 

as the prize of the Mexican War, it was practically unsettled 
territory. For nearly a hundred years it had been 
a field of missionary work conducted by Spanish priests of 
the Jesuit and Franciscan orders. When the Americans ap- 
peared upon the scene (in 1847) there were missions at San 




AW- 






^ 






Iffission of San Jose. 

Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Jose, and 
San Francisco. The purpose ©f the mission was to teach 
the Indians Christianity and to train them in the arts of civilized 
life. The chief occupations of the missions were farming, 
cattle-raising, and fruit-growing. In the fields the priests set 
an example of industry and worked side by side with the 
Indians. About 1833 an order of the Mexican government 
brought the missions under the control of the civil authority. 

Even if the missions had not been molested by the ^^lexicans The 
they would have been destroyed by the fierce onset of Ameri- of Gold 
can progress. Nine days before the signing of the treaty of fornia 
Guadalupe it was discovered that gold was abundant in the 
Sacramento Valley. This news spread like a forest fire and 
soon there was a wild dash for California. Men of all ages 
and of all classes, especially the bold and adventurous, 
started for the far-ofif coast of the Pacific. Some went all 
the way by water, sailing around Cape Horn, a distance of 
seven thousand miles ; others went by water only to the Isth- Travel 

to U^ll- 

mus of Panama ^ where they crossed the unhealthful neck of fomia 

1 The question of transportation across the American Isthmus gave rise to 
diplomatic negotiations between England and the United States which resulted in 



564 ADVANCED AiMERICAN HISTORY 

land and reembarked on the Pacific side; still others went by 
an overland route, starting from the frontier town of Inde- 
pendence (near Kansas City) and following either the Santa 
P"e Trail or the Oregon Trail. On the overland routes there 
was much suffering and hardship. On the plains water was 
hard to get and many perished of thirst. When crossing 
streams wagons were sometimes swallowed up by quicksaml. 
On the rough paths in the mountains vehicles were often over- 
turned and their occupants injured or killed. 

But in spite of the long and dangerous journey gold-hunters 
went out to California by the tens of thousands. In the spring 
of 1849 nearly twenty-thousand emigrants set out from Inde- 
pendence for the gold-fields. San Francisco, which in 1847 was 
only a hamlet, grew in five years to be a city of nearly 35,000 
inhabitants. The rapid growth of San Francisco was matched 
in a score of places. Stockton from a single ranch house, 
grew to be a town of a thousand souls in a few months. 
Sacramento, which had no ejfistence in 1848, was a thriving 
town in 1849. So great was the influx of gold-seekers that 
the population of California increased from 10,000 in 1848 to 
nearly 100,000 in 1850. 

California was therefore ready for Statehood in a very few 
months after it came into our possession. But Congress was 
slow to give the gold-miners a government although they sorely 
needed one. The old Mexican government was unable to cope 
with the new situation and for a time '' law was wanting, jus- 
tice was defeated, and villainy was rampant." The Califor- 
nians were preparing to take matters in their own hands and 
establish a government of their own accord, when in June 1849 
General Riley, the military governor of California, issued a 
proclamation recommending the formation of a State consti- 
tution or a plan for a territorial government. The people de- 
sired statehood and a State constitution. Accordingly, in the 

1850 in the ratification of tiie Clayton-Bulwer treaty. In this treaty the Ihiited 
States entered into an agreement with England not to build an Isthmian canal 
over which we should have exclusive control; if the United Slates should build 
a canal it was to be neutral. The treaty was formally annulled in 1901. 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES 365 

fall of 1849 a constitutional convention met at Monterey and 
drew up a constitution, which was ratified by the people and 
submitted to Congress. The constitution prohibited slavery 
and the debate ^ on the subject of admitting California was 
long and stormy. In 1850, however, Congress consented to 
admit it. So, California came into the Union without having 
first passed through the territorial stage of government. 

118. UTAH; NEW MEXICO. 

At the same time that Congress was legislating for Oregon The 
, ^ ,.. . . ,, , , . , . , Mormons 

and California, it was called upon to legislate in regard 

to Utah, for it was during the Westward Movement of 
the forties that the foundations of Utah were laid. The 
pioneers of Utah were the Mormons, a body of people who 
were organized as a religious society in 1830 by Joseph Smith. 
The first home of the Mormons was in western New York, but 
they soon moved to Kirkland, Ohio, and afterward to Inde- 
pendence, Missouri. In 1838 they were driven out of Mis- 
souri, and a new home was found at Nauvoo, Illinois. Here 
they got into more trouble and in 1844 their leader, Joseph 
Smith, was killed. Under their new leader, Brigham Young, 
they set out for a new home in the Far West. In a thousand 
covered wagons they left Illinois and after a long and toil- 
some journey across the plains came at last to a valley in 
the Salt Lake basin. Here they found a permanent resting 
place. The region in which they settled had a soil which 
could be made productive only by irrigation. So the Mor- irriga- 
mons dug ditches to carry the water from the mountains down 
into the valley and in a few years their valley was producing 
many kinds of grass and fruit. This was the first time sys- 
tematic irrigation was used on a large scale in the United 
States. 

When the Mormons settled in the Salt Lake basin they (Deseret) 

•^ Utah 

were outside of the bounds of the United States, and on the Terri- 
tory 

soil of New Mexico, a province of Mexico. But the treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo speedily brought them again under 

1 An account of this debate will be given in Chapter XXXIV. 



366 



ADVANXED AMERICAN HISTORY 



the jurisdiction of the United States. Submitting reluctantly 
to the change, they began at once to form a State and seek 
admission into the Union. A convention was held (1849) 
at Salt Lake City and a constitution was adopted for 
a State which was to be called Deseret, Brigham Young 
was made Governor and a legislature was chosen. A dele- 
gate was sent to Washington praying for the admission of 
Deseret into the Union, but Congress took no action upon 
the petition. It did, however, recognize the fact that the 
IMomions needed a government, and in 1850 it gave them 
a territorial government, the name of the Territory being 
Utah. 

■ The same day that Utah was made a territory, a territorial 
government was given to New Mexico. The population of 




The Santa Fe and Oregon trails to the Pacific Coast. 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE FORTIES 



2^7 



this province when it came into our possession was about 
50,000. Santa Fe, the ancient capital of New Mexico and 
a place of more than 5,000 inhabitants, was the center of 
the travel and trade which moved along the Santa Fe trail. 
The value of the merchandise distributed annually at Santa 
Fe was more than half a million dollars. Albuquerque, an- 
other city of New Mexico, was almost as large as Santa Fe. 
This region, therefore, was a considerable province when 
it came into our possession.^ Many of the people of New 
Mexico felt that their province was entitled to Statehood and 
an attempt was made to secure the admission of New Mexico 
into the Union. But the province had to be content with the 
territorial government which was given to it in 1850. 

The movement into the Far \\'est during the forties quickly The 

Results 

brought to the United States benefits of incalculable value, of the' 
The prompt settlement of 
the Oregon country and of 
California, by Americans, 
shattered completely any 
hopes that any foreign na- 
tion may have had of secur- 
ing possession of the Pacific 
Coast. The vigorous oper- 
ation of the mines in Cali- 
fornia supplied the country 
with a vast amount of need- 
ed gold. The average an- 
nual output of gold from 
California between 1850 and 
i860 amounted to more than 
$60,000,000. Much of this 
gold was coined into money 
and this additional currency 




Returned Californians waiting 
with their gold at the Mint in 
Philadelphia. 



1 New Mexico, as laid out in 1850, included the greater part of what is now 
Arizona. In 1853 James Gadsden, acting as an agent for the United States, 
purchased from Mexico, for the sum of $10,000,000, a tract of land 36,000 square 
miles in area. This tract, known as the Gadsden Purchase, now forms the 
southern part of Arizona, which was organized as a territory in 1863. 



368 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

canic just in the nick of time, for our commerce and in- 
dustry were increasing with the expansion of the country 
and the conditions of business required a greater volume of 
currency. Then, too, with the acquisition of the Pacific 
Coast we turned our face to the Orient. In 1854 Commodore 
M. C. Perry prevailed upon Japan to abandon its policy of 
seclusion and open its ports to our vessels. With this event 
the trade of our Pacific ports began to increase and it con- 
tiiuicd to grow until in 1912 it amounted to the enormous 
sum of nearly a quarter of a billion of dollars, the trade with 
Japan alone being nearly $150,000,000. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The struggle for a constitution in Iowa: McMaster VII, 179-183. 

2. The war with Black Hawk: McMaster VI, 327-329. 

3. The establishment of Wisconsin Territory: R. G. Thwaites, Wis- 
consin, 229-245. 

4. The discovery of gold in California: Halsey VII, 88-96; Mc- 
Master VII, 584-597. 

5. Movement of popular government in California: McMaster Vli, 
609-611; Wilson, 167-169. 

6. The emigration to Oregon in the forties: McMaster VII, 298- 
299, 41 1-4 1 3. 

7. The early history of Mormonism: McMaster VI, 103-107, 249- 
250; also VII, 208-210, 218-220. 

8. New Mexico: McMaster VIII, 365-370. 

9. Utah: McMaster VIII, 374-390. 

10. For the table of admitted States : Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas, Cali- 
fornia, Florida. 

11. Prepare a five minutes' paper on "The West in the Forties," bas- 
ing the account on McMaster VII, 190-227, 

12. The Plow: Forman, Useful Inventions, 73-84. 

13. The Reaper: Forman, Useful Inventions, S5-g6. 

14. Special Reading. William Salter, lozva. R. G. Thwaites, Wis- 
consin. Joseph Shafer, History of the Pacific Northwest. Josiah 
Royce, California. 



XXXIII 

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 

We saw that in dealing with the new acquisitions the question arose 
as to whether or not slavery was to be permitted in the acquired terri- 
tory. Indeed this question arose in Congress even before we had 
actually acquired the Mexican provinces, and by 1850 sentiment on 
the subject of the extension of slavery was more sharply divided than 
ever before in our history. By that date it was plain that the North 
as a section was violently opposed to extension, and that the South 
as a section would bitterly resent a policy that did not permit ex- 
tension. We ought, therefore, at this point to take a close view of 
slavery and examine it as it existed in 1850. What was the character 
of this social institution about which the North and the South differed 
so widely? What were the conditions of slave life? What did it 
mean to be a slave? 

119. SLAVEHOLDERS; POOR WHITES; FREE NEGROES. 

In 1850 fifteen States — Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, statistice 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, slavery 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ar- 
kansas, and Texas — were recognizing slavery by law, while 
sixteen (counting California) made human bondage illegal. 
The total population of the slave States at this time was 
9,569, 540. The number of whites was 6,282,965 ; the number 
of free negroes 238,187; and the number of slaves 3,204,051. 
Of the whole number of slaves nearly two-thirds were in the 
cotton States, engaged in cotton culture. The number of 
slaveholders was little less than 350,000. Among the 
whites about one person in eighteen was the owner of slaves. 
The majority of slaveholders owned less than five slaves 
each, and about one-fifth of them owned only one slave each. 

369 



370 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

About 8,000 slaveholders owned more than fifty slaves 
each. 
The The slaveholders, as distinguished from the non-slavehold- 

hoiding ing whites, constituted the ruling class. And they were a 
class well-fitted to rule. It was everywhere acknowledged 
that the South excelled in the training of statesmen. " While 
the Northern people," said a Northern man (Horace Bushnell) 
" were generally delving in labor for many generations to 
create a condition of comfort, slavery set the masters at once 
on a footing of ease, gave them leisure for elegant intercourse, 
for studies, and seasoned their character with that kind of 
cultivation which distinguishes men of society. A class of 
statesmen was thus raised up who were prepared to figure 
as leaders in scenes of public life where so much depends 
upon manners and social address." The slaveholders were 
the ruling class in the South and they were the leaders in 
the government of the nation as well. Up to 1850 every 
President but the two Adamses, \'an I'.uren and Harrison be- 
longed to the slaveholding class. 
The But there were upwards of four million whites in the slave 

States who did not belong to the slaveholding class. Many 
of these non-slaveholders were merchants, mechanics, small 
farmers, professional men, and the like, and were prosperous, 
well-to-do citizens, but vast numbers of those who were out- 
side the slaveholding class had but little property of any 
kind and were close to the poverty line. This class of non- 
slaveholders formed a rather distinct stratum of society known 
as "poor whites." The condition of the poor whites was 
indeed pitiful. Besides being poor they were illiterate, help- 
less, and abject, despised both by the slaveholders and the 
slaves. They enjoyed the right of suffrage, it is true, but 
when election day came they usually voted the way the 
slaveholder directed. They were almost completely shut out 
of the industrial world, for slavery required the presence of 
but few white men. " The theoretical perfection of such a 
system," says Weston in his Progress of Slavery, " requires 
that the proportion of whites should be no greater than is 



Poor 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 371 

necessary for directing and coercing the blacks ; and any ex- 
cess of whites above that proportion is worse than superfluous, 
making a class of idlers, or worse than idlers, who in various 
ways, destroy or diminish the profits of the industry of others." 
Industrially regarded, the poor white was a hanger-on ; socially 
he was an outcast; politically he was the tool of the slave- 
holder. 

But immeasurably worse than the plight of the poor white 
was the plight of the free negro, for while all slaves were 
negroes, in every State, there were negroes who were not slaves. 
In 1850 there were nearly 200,000 free negroes in the 
North and a somewhat greater number in the South. But 
whether in the North or in the South, the free negro almost 
everywhere was branded as belonging to a separate and inferior 
caste and was discriminated against by unfriendly legisla- 
tion. In the South the free negro was nowhere allowed to 
vote, while in most of the Northern States he was either de- 
nied the suffrage outright or was compelled to meet an 
unusually high property qualification. Nor did the free negro 
anywhere escape the humiliating persecutions of racial preju- 
dice. A church in Boston excluded (in 1830) a colored family 
from the use of a pew to which the family had a clear legal 
title. In Rhode Island on the Boston and Providence Rail- 
road a special compartment was set apart for the negroes. In 
the slaveholding States free negroes were not in the eyes 
of the law full citizens. They could not hold meetings or teach 
each other to read and write, nor could they testify in a 
court of law against a white man. They could, however, ac- 
ciniuilate property and it is estimated that in i860 the free 
negroes of the South owned property amounting to $25,000,000. 
A part of the property of the more prosperous free negroes 
sometimes consisted of negro slaves. In Charleston there was 
a free negro who was the owner of more than fifty members 
of his own race. 



Free 
Negroes 



n2 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

120. THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE. 

The Regarded as a possession, the slave was a chattel ; he was 

in as completely a piece of property as a watch or a horse is 

a piece of property. Slaves, therefore, could be sold or given 
away at the will of the owner. All through the South there 
was a traffic in slaves and the advertisements in the papers 
about 1850 show that although the foreign slave-trade had 
been i)rohibited (p. 245 ) there was still a brisk domestic trade 
in domestic slaves. Between 1850 and i860 the border States 
— Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky — sold to the cotton 
States about 25,000 slaves every year. A slave-dealer at 
Natchez, advertised " ninety negroes just arrived from Rich- 
mond, consisting of field hands, house servants, several fine 
cooks, some excellent mules, and one very fine riding-horse." 
A slave-dealer at Baltimore advertised for five thousand ne- 
groes, announcing that families were " never separated." The 
provision in regard to separation was made out of deference 
to public opinion. In the traffic of slaves the best sentiment 
in the South disapproved of the breaking up of families if 
it was possible to keep them together. 
Protec- Although the slave was deprived of his liberty and was 

of the denied the right of owning property, he customarily did pos- 
Life sess and use considerable property, chiefly personal, and his 

life at least was in a measure protected by the law. In 
respect to murder the slave and the white man were on an 
equality, for in all the slave-holding States the willful, ma- 
licious, and deliberate killing of a slave was made a capital 
crime. A master, however, could lawfully kill a slave in self- 
defense. The master could inflict punishment upon a slave 
to almost any degree and if a slave died as the result of punish- 
ment the master was held guiltless if he could prove that the 
punishment was moderate. The wanton murder of a slave by 
a master did sometimes occur, but two things operated pow- 
erfully to prevent the occurrence of such an outrage. First, 
there was the financial loss. In 1850 a good slave was worth 
from $1,000 to $1,500 and to kill one was to lose a con- 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 373 

siderable sum of money. Second, there was the lash of public 
opinion. Although a master who had killed a slave might 
escape the just penalty of the law, there was in all the South 
no community in which he could escape the opprobrium and 
scorn of his neighbors. An instance is cited where a man 
was driven to insanity and suicide by the execration which 
was visited upon him because he had whipped a slave to 
death. 

121. CONDITIONS OF SLAVE LIFE. 
What were the ordinary conditions of slave life? What The 

Over- 

did it mean to be a slave? In the border States slavery was seer 
relieved of many of its most forbidding aspects. In Virginia 
the institution had as many agreeable features in 1850 as 
it had in 1800 (p. 245). But in the cotton, sugar, and rice 
States the industrial system required a greater number of 
large plantations which could not be managed directly by their 
owners, who were themselves disposed to be humane and to 
protect their slaves. On these large estates the slaves were 
under the supervision of an overseer whose object was to 
manage the plantation in a manner that would produce the 
best results in the form of profits. Too often the overseer 
was a brutal fellow who in the performance of his task sub- 
jected the slaves to rough and inhuman treatment. On the 
great plantations the overseer was at his worst, for here his 
salary frequently depended upon the amount of cotton raised, 
and in order to increase the yield he sometimes worked the 
slaves without regard to mercy and beyond the limits of 
endurance. 

Since the service of slaves could oftentimes be com- The 
manded only by physical force, the laws gave to the masters ment 
ample authority to use force in securing the obedience of slaves 
their negroes. Slaves were controlled either by imprison- 
ment or by flogging. Imprisonment was seldom practicable, 
for in prison the slave could not work although he must be 
fed. So the almost universal form of punishment for of- 
fenses, whether public or private, was flagellation. Whipping 



374 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

three score years ago, it should he remembered, was very much 
more common than it is now. The lash was still regularly used 
in the navy, and to some extent in the army. In some places 
husbands could lawfully whip their wives, while in a number 
of States the less serious crimes of white men were punished 
at the whipping-post. I>ut the slave might be whipped not 
only for crimes but for the ordinary offenses of daily life, 
for carelessness, for disobedience, for insolence, and especially 
for idleness. When a task was set it had to be completed 
or a flogging would follow. In the cotton-fields the punish- 
ment was often administered by a negro foreman who followed 
the men and urged the laggards to greater exertion by laying 
on the whip. In the flogging of his slaves the master saw 
no harm whatever. It was his theory that the negroes were 
but children and that if the rod was spared the slave would be 
spoiled. But it must not be thought that in the flogging of 
slaves cruelty was the rule, for it was not. At times, it is 
true, a master in a fit of temper or in a state of intoxication, 
would use his power in a cruel manner, but as a rule the 
punishment inflicted upon slaves Avas merciful. Indeed, every- 
where in the South the brutal master found himself an un- 
popular member of the community in which he lived. 
Pood, The material welfare of the slave depended upon the 

Clothing, . . . . 

and^ good-will and humanity of his master. Generally speaking, 

the household slaves fared well in regard to food, clothing, and 
shelter. An English traveler (Buckingham) tells us that the 
condition of " the slaves of the household was quite as com- 
fortable as that of servants in the middle ranks of life in 
England. They are generally well-fed, well-dressed, attentive, 
orderly, respectful, and easy to be governed, but more by 
kindness than by severity." But on plantations where divi- 
dends were the main thing to be considered, slaves did not fare 
so well. The food of the field hand consisted of corn-bread, 
hominy, bacon, potatoes, and other vegetables. Of course it 
was to the interest of the master that the slave should not 
suflfer for want of food, yet in some of the States this matter 
was made a subject of legislation, and it was enacted that the 



Shelter 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 



375 




Negro hut in Virginia. 



quantity of food supplied to slaves should be sufficient to 
keep them in a healthful condition. So a slave could not 
legally be starved. The 
household slaves were well- 
dressed but the clothing of 
the field hands was coarse 
like their food and was 
as scant as was consistent 
with decency and bodily 
comfort. The cabins or 
quarters in which the slaves 
lived were humble struc- 
tures built in a row, form- 
ing a kind of street. As a rule each cabin had a garden and a 
pig-pen in which were two or three pigs. Sometimes the cab- 
ins were unfit for human occupancy, but on the well-managed 
plantations the sanitation of the quarters was attended to and 
the cabins at regular periods were thoroughly cleaned and 
whitewashed inside and outside. Very often a regular plan- 
tation doctor was employed to care for the health of the slaves. 

In regard to religious matters the slaves were not neglected, Religion 
for they were given oral instruction in the Bible, they had their Educa- 
own negro preachers, and, on the larger plantations, they had 
their own little church. Often they had a place set apart for 
them in the white men's church. But in matters of education 
the slave fared badly indeed. In most of the slave States it 
was against the law to teach a slave to read or write, be- 
cause it was feared that the educated negro might become a 
leader in plots or insurrections. ^lany masters believed that 
to educate the slaves would do them more harm than good. 
Said a Georgian planter : " The very slightest amount of 
education, merely teaching them to read, impairs their value 
as slaves, for it instantly destroys their contentedness ; and 
since you do not contemplate changing their condition it is 
surely doing them an ill service to destroy their acquiescence 
in it." Not all masters, however, took this view of the mat- 
ter, for household slaves were frequently taught to read and 



376 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



write in spite of the law, and the instruction was often given 
bv the masters themselves. 



The 
Ethics 
of 
Slavery 



122. MORAL AND INDUSTRIAL ASPECTS OF SLAVERY. 

The slaveholders as a class saw nothing wrong in negro 
slavery. In the early days of the Re])ublic. it is true, many 
leading men of the South expressed doubts as to the rightful- 
ness of slavery, but by 1850 such doubts rarely troubled the 
consciences of prominent Southerners. " But let me not," 
said Calhoun in 1837, " be understood as admitting even by 
implication that the existing relation between the two races 
in the slaveholding States is an evil ; — far otherwise. I hold 
it to be a good, as it has thus far proved to be to both." " Few 
persons in the South," said W. Gilmore Simms in 1852, " ques- 
tion their perfect right to the labor of their slaves ; and, more, 
their moral obligation to keep them still subject as slaves 

and to compel their labor so long 
as they remain the inferior beings 
which we find them now and which 
they seem to have been from the 
beginning." That is to say, in the 
minds of most Southerners, the 
maintenance of slavery was not 
only a right but a duty as well. 
One of the arguments in support 
of slavery was found in the fact 
that in both the Old and New 
Testament human bondage was 
fully recognized and was nowhere 
condemned. This was a powerful 
argument in the minds of most 
slaveholders, for they regarded the 
Bible as the supreme authority on all moral questions. An- 
other pro-slavery argument was that slavery had lifted the 
negro from the savage conditions of the African jungle and 
placed him under the influence of Christian civilization. Then 
it was urged in behalf of the institution that the slaves had 




In old Tennessee. 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 Z77 

their material wants supplied and were relieved of all anxiety 
whether for the present or the future, whereas the free man 
was liable to suffer from the lack of employment or through 
the disabilities of sickness or old age. 

But doubtless the most coercive argument in favor of slavery The 

1 • 1 r 1 11- J Econom 

was not that it was good for the negro but that it was good ics 
for the white man. The South believed that its prosperity slavery 
depended upon slave labor. Not that slave labor was cheap, 
for it was not. The slave himself had to be bought and 
at a very high price. Then he had to be housed, fed, and 
clothed, nursed and cared for in sickness, and supported in 
idleness in his old age. Planters often said that if they could 
employ laborers for their cotton-fields on terms as easy as 
those on which the manufacturer of the North employed work- 
men for their factories, they would give up their slaves, pro- 
viding they could do so with safety. But here was the trouble, 
and it was a double trouble : the planters were unable to 
hire white men and they did not dare free their slaves. The 
" poor whites " of the South would not work side by side 
with the slaves, much less would the sturdy workman of the 
North do this. So, if free labor was to be employed at all, 
it would have to supplant slave labor entirely, and all the 
slaves would have to be freed. The planters felt that to let 
loose three millions of free negroes in the South would re- 
sult in the destruction of society. Thus they looked upon 
slavery as an institution which was absolutely necessary for 
the industrial prosperity of the South and which was in the 
nature of things destined to be permanent. 

But while the South believed that slavery brought great The 

•1 • , , r ■ ^r ■ , , , , . Benefits 

industrial benefits to itself it contended that the entire country of 
shared in those benefits. '" Upon the South," said a defender 
of slavery, " as upon the strong arm of a brother, so long 
as negro slavery exists, the North can rely: it will furnish 
materials for its workshops, a market for its manufactures, 
wealth to its capitalists, wages to the laborer." In this con- 
tention the South was right. By 1850 every part of the Union 
was sharing in the profits which flowed from the employment 



378 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

of slaves. It was the labor of slaves that supplied cotton 
to the mills of the North, that supported the foreign trade 
and the trade between Southern ports and Boston, New York, 
and Philadelphia, and that provided a market for the surplus 
produce of the Western States (p. 331). 
The Inasmuch as most slaveholders believed that slavery was a 

Opposi- ... 

tion positive good and that the benefits of the institution were 

tothe ^ ^^ . . 

Exten- diffused over the whole nation, it was no wonder that they 

Bion 

of favored the extension of slavery. But the North by 1850 

Slavery . . -^ . 

was setting its face strongly against the extension of slavery. 

It did not yet wish to disturb slavery immediately, at least, 
in the slave States, but it did wish to confine it strictly within 
the area in which it already existed, believing that -in this 
way slavery would be ultimately extinguished. The opposi- 
tion to the extension of slavery was based in part on moral 
grounds. The twenty years of agitation conducted by the 
abolitionists bore fruit and by 1850 a large number of people 
in the North had come to believe that to hold a human being 
in bondage was a sin against God. Many opposed the ex- 
tension of slavery on political grounds. If slavery should 
be established in the territories and these should be admitted 
as slave States, the slaveholding power, it was feared in the 
North, would be irresistible and would rule the nation for all 
time. Then there were great numbers of small farmers, me- 
chanics, and tradesmen in the North who resisted the ex- 
tension of slavery for social and industrial reasons. They felt 
that they and their children had a share in the lands of the 
West and if one day they should go out to claim their little 
pieces of land they did not relish the thought of having as 
neighbors proud slaveholders who would look down upon ordi- 
nary people and treat them as the poor whites of the South 
were treated. Thus the forces opposing slavery extension were 
about the most powerful that could be directed against it. 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 379 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Cotton and slavery: Bogart, 133-140. 

2. A pro-slavery argument: Hart III, 597-602. 

3. The "Underground Railroad": Halsey VII, 110-T15; Rhodes II, 
74-77, 361-362. 

4. A good-natured slaveholder's view of slavery: Hart IV, 72-75. 

5. Calhoun on slavery : Harding, 249-257. 

6. Jefferson on slavery: Rhodes I, 10-13, 16. 

7. The slave-trade: Rhodes II, 2>67-t,72; McMaster VII, 278-279. 

8. Describe the economical effects of the plantation system : Bogart, 
296-300. 

9. The poor whites: Rhodes I, 344-347; Hart IV, 59-62. 

10. The free negro: McMaster VI, 70-78; Hart HI, 583-589. 

11. Slavery and the churches: Bassett, 471-472. 

12. Special Reading. A. B. Hart, Slavery and Abolition. W. P. and 
F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison. F. L. Olmstead, A Journey in 
the Seaboard Slave States. Edward Ingle, Southern Sidelights. J. C. 
Ballagh, A History of Slavery in Virginia. B. T. Washington, The 
Story of the Negro. 



XXXIV 

SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE; PARTY 
REORGANIZATION 

By the time the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed (in 1848) 
slavery had become an overshadowing issue, and for several years 
our political history was simply the history of the efforts made to 
solve the slavery problem and of the party disturbances which those 
efforts produced. This chapter, therefore, will cover the period 
between 1848 and 1854, and will give an account of the attempts 
which were made to solve the slavery question during these eventful 
years. 

123. THE WILMOT PROVISO; THE ELECTION OF 1848. 

The In 1846, when a bill was in its passage through Congress 

^ro^so giving money to Polk to aid him in his plans for acquiring 
New Mexico and California, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania 
proposed to amend the bill as follows: " Provided, That, as 
an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of 
any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United 
States, in virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated be- 
tween them, and to the use by the Executive of the monies 
herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
shall ever exist in any part of said territory except for crime, 
whereof the party shall first be duly convicted." In this at- 
tempt to prohibit the spread of slavery the Wilmot Proviso, 
as the amendment was called, woke up a question which poli- 
ticians since the days of the Missouri Compromise had 
allowed to slumber, but which the abolitionists would allow 
to slumber no longer. The Proviso arrested the attention of 
the public mind and called forth expressions of opinion in 
all parts of the Union. In the South the sentiment against 

380 



SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 381 

the restriction of slavery was well expressed by the legisla- 
ture of Virginia, which affirmed in substance that the adoption 
and enforcement of the Proviso would lead to actual warfare. 
In the North the sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of 
the Proviso. The legislatures of all the free States except Senti- 

111 ment 

Iowa passed resolutions to the effect that Congress had the North 

• 1 -1 • T • 1 ^^^ 

power and that it was its duty to prohibit slavery in the South 

territories. It was of ominous significance that opinion in 
regard to the Proviso did not run along party lines, but along 
sectional lines. Whigs and Democrats in the South joined in 
condemning the Proviso; Whigs and Democrats in the North 
joined in giving it their su])port. Wilmot's amendment was 
defeated in 1846, but it came up in Congress again and again. 
Indeed, the Proviso proved to be the thin edge of a wedge 
that was to sunder friendships and social ties and that was to 
be driven deeper and deeper until great religious denomina- 
tions,^ political parties, and even the Union itself, were split 
in twain. 

Although the Wilmot Proviso had made the question of Demo- 

. . ... cratic 

the extension of slavery the most vital of all political issues, andwwg 

• 1 1 r • -11 Nomina- 

this question was avoided — as far as it was possible to tions 
avoid it — by both the great political parties in the Presi- 
dential election of 1848. The Democrats in that year nom- 
inated Lewis Cass of Michigan and adopted a platform of 
the strict constructionist type. An effort was made in their 
convention to pass a resolution condemning the W^ilmot Pro- 
viso, but the resolution was voted down by a heavy majority. 
The Wliigs adopted no platform at all. They simply nom- 
inated General Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, for President and 
Millard Fillmore, of New York, for Vice-President, and went 
before the country in the hope that Taylor's war record would 
bring them victory. Clay was before the convention — this 

t The Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church were both split by the 
slavery (juestion. In 1844 the Methodist Church divided upon the question 
whether a bishop could hold slaves, the Southern members withdrawing and 
organizing the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In 1850 the Presbyterians 
divided upon the question whether a slaveholder should be admitted to member- 
ship in the Presbyterian Church. 



382 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Free 
Soilers 



The 

Results 
of the 
Election 
of 1848 



was the fifth time he had come forward as a candidate for 
the Presidency — but on the first ballot Taylor showed greater 
strength. Resolutions affirming the Wilmot Proviso were of- 
fered in the Whig convention, but they were rejected. Thus 
the Democrats in 1848 were not ready to tie themselves U]) 
to the cause of slavery and the Whigs were unwilling to be- 
come an anti-slavery party. 

But the Free Soil party/ which met at Buffalo and nom- 
inated ex-President Van Buren for the Presidency, came out 
against slavery in the strongest of terms. The Free Soilers 
declared that Congress had no more power to make a slave 
than to make a King. They resolved : " That we accept the 
issue which the slave power has forced upon us ; and to their 
demand for more slave States and more slave territory, our 
calm but final answer is : No more slave States, and no more 
slave territory. Let the soil of our extensive domain be kept 
free for the hardy pioneers of our land and the oppressed and 
banished of other lands." 

This ultimatum of the Free Soilers was a clear statement of 
the aims of most anti- 
slavery men : a majority of 
the opponents of slavery in 
1848 did not wish to abol- 
ish slavery ; they wished 
to prevent the spread of 
slavery. But in 1848 men 
generally were not ready 
to take sides on the slav- 
ery question. Van Buren 
failed to secure a single 
electoral vote, although in 
Massachusetts and New 
York he polled a larger 
popular vote tb.m Cass. 
Taylor was not a great Zachary Taylor. 




1 The organization of the Free Soil party resulted in breaking up the Liberty 
party (p. 342). 



SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 383 

statesman, but in the Mexican War he had shown himself to 
be a good fighting man and he therefore went mto the campaign 
with the glamour of a hero. He received 163 electoral votes, 
and Cass 128. " It will hardly be speaking too strongly to 
characterize the election of 1848 as a contest without an issue. 
Neither of the two great parties which alone might expect to 
win sought to rally the ]:)eople to the defense of any important 
principle. Practically the only thing decided was that a Whig 
general should bi- made President because he had done effective 
work in carrying on a Democratic war. It was only an eddy 
in the historical current in which force and direction seem to 
have been lost." ^ 

124. THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
But much as statesmen and party leaders desired to avoid The 

. Ques- 

the slavery question they were compelled to meet it. By 1849 tio°sat 

it was imperative upon Congress to consider the question of 
admitting California as a State and to provide territorial gov- 
ernments for Utah and New Mexico. Congress soon found 
that proper legislation for the government of these new lands 
would bring up the whole subject of slavery extension and 
restriction. Should California come in as a free State or as 
a slave State? In providing territorial governments for Utah 
and New Mexico should slavery be excluded from these new 
territories as it had recently been excluded from Oregon Terri- 
tory (p. 362) or should slavery be allowed? Then there was 
the question of slavery and the slave-trade in the District 
of Columbia : slavery was legal in the District, and the anti- 
slavery people wished it abolished. Here Congress had full 
power (119): would it use that power to suppress slavery 
in the District or would it leave it undisturbed ? Still another 
question that thrust itself before Congress at this time re- 
ferred to fugitive slaves. The abolitionists in their zeal for 
the freedom of the negro assisted in the escape of runaway 
slaves. When the fugitive slave reached Pennsylvania or 
Ohio he was often met by officers of what was called an 

X G. P. Garrison, Westward Extension, p. 284. 



384 



ADVANCED AMERICAN illSlORY 



The 
Desires 
of the 
North 
and of the 
South 



" underground railroad." This was a secret organization 
whose purpose was to aid runaway slaves to reach Canada, 
where slavery was illegal. If the master could find a slave 
anywhere in the United States he could, under the fugitive- 
slave law (p. 245), seize the fugitive and take him back home, 
but if the runaway could once get his foot on Canadian soil 
he was safe. Through the assistance of the conductors of 
the " underground railroad " the slave-holders by 1850 were 
every year losing hundreds of valuable slaves. So, the South 
demanded a new fugitive-slave law, one that would enable the 
master to retake his runaway slave in spite of the abolitionists 
and the " underground railroad." .Would Congress give the 
South such a law ? 

The above questions were squarely before Congress in the 
spring of 1850. Broadly speaking, the North and the South 
were directly opposed on every question. The North de- 
sired to let California come in as a free State. To this the 
vSouth was opposed, because if California came in free there 
would be sixteen free States and fifteen slave States and 
the balance of power (p. 299) between the North and the 
South would be disturbed. The North wished to prohibit 
slavery in New Mexico and Utah. The South opposed such 
a prohibition on the ground that if slaves could not be carried 
into New Mexico and Utah they would be shut out of the 
IMexican acquisitions altogether, for in California the people 
themselves had declared against slavery. To exclude slavery, 
therefore, from Utah and New Mexico would be to say to 
the South that not a single slave State should ever be carved 
out of the vast territory acquired from Mexico. The North 
desired to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia because 
it regarded its existence there as a national scandal. The 
South declared that it would regard the abolition of slavery 
in the District as a direct and unnecessary attack upon a 
cherished institution of Southern society. The North desired 
that the existing fugitive-slave law should remain unchanged. 
The South demanded a new and more stringent law, and 
threats were made that if the North did not deliver up fugitive 



SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 385 

slaves the Southern States would by way of retaliation pass 
laws to prevent the sale of Northern products in the South. 

Upon the questions at issue Congress in 1850 was divided, ciay's 
In the House the majority was against the extension of slavery, mise 
In the Senate the majority was favorable to the South. So, 
if there was to be action at all there would have to be a 
compromise. The task of effecting a compromise was un- 
dertaken by Clay, then a member of the Senate. " Let me 
say," said the great Kentuckian, who was now in his seventy- 
third year and who honestly felt that his mission was to save 
the Union from dissolution, " let me say to the North and 
to the South what husband and wife say to each other: we 
have mutual faults; neither of us is perfect; nothing in the 
form of humanity is perfect. Let us then be kind to each 
other, forbearing, forgiving each other's faults, and above all 
let us live in happiness and peace together." In this spirit 
of good-will Clay came forward with a plan that he hoped 
would please both North and South. His plan was ; 

(i) To admit California with her constitution forbidding 
slavery. (A concession to the North.) 

(2) To give New Mexico and Utah territorial governments 
providing that when ready for statehood the territories should 
be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as their 
constitutions might prescribe. (A concession to the South.) 
(A concession to the South.) 

(3) To prohibit the slave trade in the District of Columbia. 
(A concession to the North.) 

(4) To declare it inexpedient to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. (A concession to the South.) 

(5) To enact a more stringent fugitive-slave law. (A con- 
cession to the South. 1 

Calhoun was present in the Senate while the compromise cai- 
measures were before that body, but he was suffering with '*°"" 
a disease and was unable to speak. His speech, however, was 

1 It was also proposed in connection with the compromise measures to reduce 
he area of Texas and pay that State $10,000,000 in return for the territory 
taken from it. The proposition was adopted, although the North was opposed to it 



386 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Webster 



read for him by a fellow Senator. Calhoun was opposed to 
Clay's plan for two reasons. First, he believed that Congress 
under the Constitution had no right to keep slavery out of 
California or any other territory belonging to the United 
States. Slavery, he contended, was a domestic institution 
with which Congress had nothing whatever to do except to 
make regulations regarding fugitive slaves (p. 245). Second, 
he believed that the South would be so highly displeased with 



1 S S U B 1 



"" <^0 OS T E B B I T (^^ R t;) \ 

C" ^ - ^H«i I L '"■• TERR IJC/^R ^ 

\^ ,; U T A H ^ T k' |V' K 1 Ij 15-Y ;, 



'--^ / 





•' "^l 'N E W%-^ E-^K }■ C 0..^ 



100 200 



\ " 




Results upon slavery of the Compromise of 1850. 

the compromise measures that she would withdraw from the 
Union. Calhoun did not threaten secession but he feared it. 
Webster also feared that the Union was in danger. In a 
speech that he regarded as the greatest of his life — his fa- 
mous Seventh of March Speech — he supported the com- 
promise measures, believing that they were necessary to save 
the Union. This speech was severely condemned by the radi- 
cal anti-slavery people, especially by those of his own State 
(Massachusetts). Theodore Parker said: " I know no deed 
in American history done by a son of New England to which. 
I can compare this but the act of Benedict Arnold. The only 



SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 387 

reasonable way in which we can estimate this speech is as a 
bid for the Presidency." It is the sober judgment of history, 
however, that Webster supported the compromise purely for 
patriotic reasons. Certainly his support brought great strength 
to Clay's plan. After a debate that lasted through all the 
summer of 1850 the compromise measures — collectively 
known as the Omnibus Bill — were passed and signed by 
President Fillmore ^ in September, 1850. 

125. THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAW. 

After the passage of the Compromise Acts of 1850 the poli- The 
ticians North and South did all they could to induce the people slave 

I . ^ 1 • T 1 r- 1 Ls-w of 

to accept the compromise measures as a finality. In the South i850 
there was much bitter opposition and there was talk of with- 
drawing from the Union, but the advocates of peace and har- 
mony were able to check what promised to be a secession move- 
ment and to secure at least a half-hearted acceptance of the 
compromise acts. In the North the opposition was directed 
chiefly against the new fugitive-slave law. The famous statute 

denied the right of trial by jury to j 

the fugitive claiming to be a free- 
man ; it imposed a penalty of fine 
and imprisonment upon any per- 
son hindering the arrest of a fugi- 
tive or attempting to rescue one 
from custody or aiding one to es- 
cape ; it excluded the testimony of 
the negro whose freedom was at 
stake ; it provided that any citizen 
might be called upon to aid in en- 
forcing the law ; and it gave federal 
commissioners the power to pass on 

the merits of cases instead of leaving this power with State 
officials. 

The law was characterized by the anti-slavery people as 

1 On July 9, President Taylor died and Vice-President Fillmore became Presi- 
dent in his stead. 




Millard Fillmore. 



388 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Resist- 
ance 
and 

Acquies- 
cence 



The 

Election 
of 
1852 



unconstitutional (138), ininioral, and abhorrent to every in- 
stinct of justice. In Indiana some citizens at an anti-slavery 
meeting declared their purpose to make the law powerless 
by refusing to obey its " inhuman and diabolical provisions." 
At Syracuse, a mass-meeting declared the law utterly null and 
void. Leaders like Clay, Webster, Douglas, Cass, Choate, 
Buchanan, came forward in defense of the law and urged 
upon citizens their duty to obey it. In some places, however, 
counsel of this kind was received with defiance and scorn. 
In Boston a fugitive named Shadrach was violently rescued 
while in custody and was spirited away to Canada. In Syra- 
cuse a number of highly respectable citizens broke into a 
court-room, rescued an alleged fugitive named Jerry, and 
smuggled him safely across the Canadian boundary. Still, 
the campaigning in behalf of finality was in the main success- 
ful. " In spite of the efforts of the radicals the excitement 
over the fugitive-slave act diminished and the people of the 
free States settled down to an attitude of sincere but re- 
luctant acquiescence." 

That slavery agitation was no longer desirable was the 
keynote in the Presidential campaign of 1852. In that year 
the Democrats resolved in their national convention that they 
^ would resist all attempts at renew- 
ing, in Congress or out of it, the 
agitation of the slavery question 
under whatever shape or color the 
attempt might be made. The 
Whigs expressed acquiescence in 
the Compromise Acts, promised to 
enforce them, and deprecated fur- 
ther agitation of the slavery ques- 
tion as dangerous. The Democrats 
nominated Franklin Pierce, of 
New Hampshire ; the Whigs nom- 
Franklin Pierce. -^^.^j^.^, ^ .^^^^^^ Wi.iiield Scott, 

hoping that his war record (]>. 354) would carry him into 
})ovver. lUit Scott did not apj)eal to the voters as Taylor 




SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 389 

had. The business interests of the country were on the side 
of Pierce and he was elected by an overwhelming majority. 
Scott carried only four States/ 

With the election of Pierce it seemed that slavery agita- "Uncie 
tion was at an end and that the country would settle down cabm" 
and enjoy a long period of repose. But it was impossible to 
suppress discussion and agitation. " To be told," said James 
Russell Lowell, " that one ought not to agitate the question 
of slavery when it is that which is forever agitating us, is 
like telling a man with the fever and ague on him to stop 
shaking and he will be better." While the politicians in 1852 
were waging their campaign against agitation, readers were 
devouring Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
which had just appeared in book form. This novel was an 
outburst of passion against slavery. It gave a story of slave 
life that touched the heart and brought tears to the eyes. 
The book was written in a most charming style and it held 
the reader spellbound. One woman wrote that she could 
no more leave the story than she could have left a dying 
child. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a work of fiction, it is true, 
and it drew an unfair picture of the slave conditions, yet 
it left upon the minds of Northern readers the indelible im- 
pression that slavery was cruel, brutal, and unjust. The book 
had no appreciable effect upon the election of 1852, but count- 
less thousands of impressionable boys who read it in that 
year were voters in 1856 and i860. 

126. THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1854). 

Even the politicians themselves were unable to steer clear The 
of the slavery question. In 1854 Stephen A. Douglas of Nebraska 
Illinois brought into the Senate a bill to organize the Nebraskan ^^ 
Territory, a region which comprised what are now the States 
of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, 
Ij and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. Douglas's bill — usually 
known as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill — in its final form pro- 

1 The Free Soilers nominated a candidate, but they polled only about half as 
many votes as they received in 1848. 



390 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

vided that the Nebraska region should be organized into two 
Territories, Kansas and Nebraska. All the Nebraska country 
was north of the parallel 36° 30', and by the terms of the 
Missouri Compromise was closed against slavery. But Doug- 
las proposed to throw it open to slavery and thus repeal 
the Missouri Compromise. This was a move by Northern 
Democrats which had not been asked for by the South. 
Douglas was able and ambitious and it was quite generally 
thought that this bill was offered as a bid for the support of 
the South in the coming presidential election. " A politician," 
writes Horace Mann from Washington about this time, " does 
not sneeze without reference to the next Presidency. All 
things are carried to that tribunal for decision." Douglas 
disavowed all selfish motives in bringing forward such a 
bold measure. He said it was due to the South and due to 
the Constitution that slavery be allowed in a new territory 
if the people of the territory desired it. In support of his 
measure he urged the doctrine of popular or " squatter " 
sovereignty : the people of each Territory were to vote on the 
question of slavery ; if the majority of votes were cast in 
favor of slavery it was to be a slave Territory, but if the 
majority of votes were cast against slavery then it was to be 
a free Territory. " If they wish slavery," said Douglas, 
" they have a right to it." 
The The Act itself declared that its true intent and meaning 

Exten- . 

sion was " not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor 

Slave to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- 

Terri- . ... . . 

tory fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 

their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." What Douglas proposed for the two new Territories 
was almost precisely what Congress had ordained for Utah and 
New Mexico in the Compromise of 1850 (p. 385). But the 
most ardent pro-slavery men had not hoped for a repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. Douglas was thoroughly in earnest and 
he pushed his bill with all his might. He received the votes of 
the Southern Democrats, who were only too glad to seize the 
magnificent opportunity for slavery extension, while Southern 



SLAVERY AN OVERSHADOWING ISSUE 391 

Whigs and a few Northern Democrats also joined in support 
of the measure. The bill had a stormy time on its passage 
through Congress, but with whip and spur Douglas carried 
it through. In May 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill became 
a law and the work of the Missouri Compromise was un- 
done. So, it seemed that the agitation begun by Wilmot in 
1846 in favor of restricting slavery was only to end in an 
enormous extension of slavery.^ 

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill threw the whole country into a ^f^^^ 
ferment of excitement. The South was delighted by the ^g^^as^g^ 
measure and the North was embittered by it. The immediate ^^^^ 
effect of the law was to cause men to divide upon the slavery 
question as they had never divided before. Hitherto there 
had been compromise and shuffling and evasion in regard to 
slavery matters, but now slavery was an overshadowing issue 
and men were compelled to take sides. Every man in the land 
had to decide whether he was for the extension of slavery or 
against it. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The Wilmot Proviso: Hart IV, 38-40; McMaster VII, 480-488. 

2. The Compromise of 1850: Bassett, 454-460; Wilson, 169-173; 
Smith, 14-26. 

3. Calhoun on the Compromise of 1850: McMaster VIII, 19-21. 

4. Clay and the Compromise of 1850: McMaster VIII, 19-28, 40-42. 

5. Webster's Seventh of March Speech: Hart IV, 52-55; McMas- 
ter VIII, 23-27. 

6. The old leaders and the new : Smith, 40-58. 

1 The Ostend Manifesto. — The pro-slavery leaders entertained hopes that Cuba 
might be annexed and made a field for the further extension of slavery. In the 
early fifties filibustering expeditions fitted out in the United States were sent 
against Cuba with the result that the island was kept in a state of turmoil. The 
remedy proposed by Southern leaders for the troubles in Cuba was annexation. 
In 1854 our ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain met at Ostend and 
drew up what was known as the Ostend Manifesto. This in effect declared that 
Spain ought to sell Cuba to the United States; that Cuba was necessary for the 
safety of slavery in the Southern States; and that if Spain should refuse to sell, 
self-preservation required that it be wrested from her by force. The declaration, 
however, was not generally supported by public opinion in the United States, 
and it was strongly condemned in Europe. The movement for annexation was 
accordingly dropped and the Ostend Manifesto came to naught. 



392 ADVANCKD AMERICAN HISTORY 

7. The Fugitive-Slave Law: H-art IV, 56-58; Wilson, 174-178; Mc- 
Master VIII, 43-54- 

8. The Kansas-Nchraska Bill: Sinilh, 94-108; Wilson, 182-185; 
Burgess, 580-406. 

9. Dates for the chronological table : 1850, 1854. 

10. Read in the class Whittier's " Ichabod." To whom did the poem 
refer? Give an account of the Gorsuch fugitive slave case. Read a 
passage of the speech of Clay on the Compromise of 1850; Harding, 
270-291. 



XXXV 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (1854-1860) 



The opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill resulted in a general 
break-up of the old political parties and led to the organization of the 
Republican party. What were the beginnings of this great party? 
What were its purposes and who were its leaders? What chain of 
events led to its triumph? 

127. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Northern sentiment against the Kansas-Nebraska BJM was Renewed 
widespread and was manifested in a variety of ways. The ance^*" 
censure visited upon the author of the bill exceeded the bounds pug^tive- 
of moderation and the popular displeasure was shown in so Law^ 
many places that Douglas said he 
could travel by the light of his own 
burning effigies from Boston to 
Chicago. In many places the re- 
sentment assumed the form of re- 
taliation. The anti-slavery men of 
the North, feeling that the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise was 
an act of bad faith, retaliated by 
renewing their fight against the 
Fugitive-Slave Law. In Boston 
people of wealth and refinement re- 
sisted officers of the law in their 
attempts to retake runaway slaves. 

The " underground railroad " was started again with increased 
activity. Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Michigan passed 
laws the plain purpose of which was to obstruct the prosecu- 
tion of the Fugitive-Slave Law. These laws, known as Per- 
sonal Liberty laws, came dangerously near nullifying the laws 
of the United States. They provided that State jails should 

393 




Stephen A. Douglas. 



394 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

not be used for detaining fugitives ; that negroes who were 
claimed as slaves should be entitled to the benefits of the writ 
of habeas corpus and of trial by jury; and that the seizure of 
a free person with the intent of reducing him to slavery 
should be punished by fine and imprisonment. Still another 
effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Law was to strengthen the abo- 
lition movement. " Pierce and Douglas," said Horace Greeley 
in May 1854, " have made more abolitionists in three months 
than Garrison and Phillips could have made in half a century." 
Garrison himself felt that the slaveholders had won a complete 
triumph by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and to 
show his dissent and disgust he publicly burned the Fugitive- 
Slave Law and the Constitution of the United States at a 
meeting of abolitionists which was held at Framingham. on 
the Fourth of July, 1854. 

Rut the most important result of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
was to crystallize the anti-slavery sentiment of the North and 
to organize anti-slavery men into a political party whose sole 
aim was to check the extension of slavery. The op- 
ponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill were Northern Whigs, 
some Northern Democrats, and Free Soilers. The dissat- 
isfied Whigs desired to reorganize the northern wing of 
the existing Whig party on an anti-slavery basis, but the 
dissatisfied Democrats and the Free Soilers desired an en- 
tirely new organization. The Whigs were most numerous, but 
the Democrats and Free Soilers would not consent to call 
themselves Whigs ; so it was necessary to build up a new party. 
The work of organization began in the West. While the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was pending in Congress a meeting of 
citizens of all parties was held at Ripon, Wisconsin, and at 
this meeting it was suggested that a new party be organized 
on the issue of slavery extension and that the name of the 
new party be " Republican." In July 1854, just after the pas- 
sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, several thousand citizens 
of Michigan assembled in an oak-grove on the outskirts of 
the town of Jackson and resolved that they would act faith- 
fully in unison to oppose the extension of slavery and would 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 



395 



be known as Republicans until the contest should be terminated. 
They also nominated State officers and recommended that a 
general convention of the free States should be called. In 
other States the anti-slavery people followed the example of 
Michigan in organizing a new party and in Wisconsin, Mas- 
sachusetts, Vermont, and Maine the name Republican was 
adopted. In the fall elections of 1854 the Republicans of 
Wisconsin and Michigan were successful and in almost every 
Northern State there was evidence that the new party had a 
great future before it. 




Scene of the struggle in Kansas. 



The first concrete issue presented to the Republican party The 
grew out of the trouble which arose in Kansas. The Kansas- Factions 
Nebraska Bill made the fertile soil of Kansas a prize to be 
contended for by the forces of slavery and the forces of free- 
dom. Even before the bill became a law emigrants from the 
South, especially from Arkansas and Missouri, were rushing 
into Kansas with the purpose of making it a slave State, while 
emigrants from the North were hurrying to the new Territory 
with the purpose of making it a free State. The slave State 
people settled along the Missouri River and founded the 
towns of Atchison, Leavenworth, and Lecompton. The free 
State people settled along the Kansas River and founded the 



396 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



towns of Topeka, Lawrence, and Osawatoniie. In March 
1855, an election was held for a territorial legislature, and in 
this contest the pro-slavery people won, their victory being" 
due largely to the votes of an organized band of Missonrians 
who rode across the border on election day, cast their votes, 
and returned at once to Missouri. The anti-slavery men ig- 
nored this election as fraudulent and proceeded to organize 
a Free State party and to prepare for bringing Kansas into 
the Union as a Free State. Representatives of the Free State 
])arty met in convention at Topeka (October 1855) and drew 
up for Kansas a constitution which prohibited slavery. This 
constitution was submitted to the voters of the Territory. It 
received the votes of the Free State party, but the pro-slavery 
men refused to take part in the voting. 

Douglas's i)lan of squatter sovereignty was now having 
its first practical application. Kansas was divided into two 
warring factions, one trying to establish slavery, the other to 
prohibit it. The quarrel between the two factions soon re- 
sulted in violence and outrage. In May 1856, the town of 
Lawrence was sacked by a mob of slave State men. In re- 
venge John Brown, with his four sons and three other men, 
went along the Pottawatomie Creek at midnight and killed five 
slave State men. Brown thought he was divinely commis- 
sioned to perform this bloody deed. " It has been decreed," 
he said, " by Almighty God, ordained for all eternity, that I 
should make an example of these men." 

By this time the Kansas question had been taken up by 
Congress. In the spring of 1856 the Free State people of 
Kansas asked that the Territory be admitted as a State under 
the Topeka constitution. In the Mouse, where many Repub- 
licans had already won seats, the vote was in favor of ad- 
mission. In the Senate, however, where the influence of the 
South was still dominant, admission was refused. Yet the 
debate on the Kansas question in the Senate showed that the 
Republicans had won some seats in that body also. 

Among the most distinguished of the Republican Senators 
was Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Sumner in a .speech 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 397 

(May 1856) on the Kansas question, directed some bitter re- The 
marks against Senator Butler of South Carolina, who was upon 

. Senator 

absent from the Senate. Two days after this speech was de- sumner 
livered Preston Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina 
and a kinsman of Butler, entered the Senate chamber, and 
struck Sumner £ heavy blow with a cane. Sumner was 
stunned by the blow and could make no resistance. Brooks 
followed up the first blow with others and by the time the 
last blow was struck Sumner was bleeding profusely and was 
in an insensible condition. The House passed a resolution of 
censure upon Brooks. He immediately resigned but was al- 
most unanimously reelected by his district. Thus the violence 
that was rife in Kansas over the extension of slavery had a 
counterpart in the very halls of Congress. 

Of course the Kansas question was carried to the theater Repub- 

lican 

of national politics. In 1856 the Republicans met at Phila- Leaders 
delphia in national convention and adopted a platform which 
declared against the spread of slavery in the Territories and 
demanded the immediate admission of Kansas as a free State. 
The Republican party was now fully organized and was re- 
ceiving the support of some of the ablest men in the North. 
Under its banner were Charles Sumner, William H. Seward 
of New York, Salmon P. Chase and Benjamin Wade of Ohio, 
and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The Republican candidate 
of 1856 was John C. Fremont, who as a young officer had ren- 
dered valuable service in the movement which led to the ac- 
quisition of California (p. 354). Fremont had been a Demo- 
crat, but his warm sympathy with the Free State party in 
Kansas had caused him to cast his lot with the Republicans. 
The Democrats in 1856 were hard pressed to find a suitable 
candidate. Either Pierce or Douglas would have been ac- The 

° Candi. 

ceptable to the South but both of these men had lost their dates 

. ... in 

popularity in the North because of their position on the slavery i856 

question. The most available candidate before the Democratic 

convention was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Buchanan 

had been absent from the country as minister to England and 

had not been obliged to take sides in the Kansas controversy. 



398 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



He was regarded with favor in the South and was strong in 
Pennsylvania, a State whose vote it was thought would be 
greatly needed by the Democrats in the approaching election. 
So, Buchanan, on the seventeenth ballot, was nominated. The 
platform of the Democrats recognized the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the 
slavery question. 

The Whig party had all but perished in the presidential 
election of 1852 and by 1856 it was practically dead. A. rem- 
nant of the Whig wreckage met at Baltimore and accepted as 
a candidate ex-President Fillmore, who had been nominated 
by the Native American party. This party was composed 
mainly of members of the old Whig party and of discon- 
tented Northern Democrats. Its chief aim was to prevent 
foreign-born citizens from holding office. Its platform de- 
clared that Americans must rule America and that naturaliza- 
tion should be granted only after a residence of 21 years. 
The party held its meetings in secret and it threw around itself 
an atmosphere of mystery. 
When a member of the 
party was asked any ques- 
tion about political mat- 
ters, he would always re- 
ply, " I don't know." 
Hence the Native Ameri- 
can party was generally 
known as the Know-Noth- 
ing party. ^ 

The campaign of 1856 
was a stirring one, the sole 
issue being, in the words 
of the stump orator, 
" Bleeding Kansas." Dur- 
ing the campaign the hap- 
penings in Kansas favored James Buchanan. 




1 The Know-Nothing party carried one State (Maryland) in 1856 and died out 
soon after the election of that year. 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 399 

the cause of the Repubhcans, but when the votes were counted 
it was found that Buchanan had been elected. The Re- 
publicans, however, received an enormous vote, the popular 
vote being 1,838,169 for Buchanan, 1,341,264 for Fremont, and 
874,534 for Fillmore. Of the votes cast for Fremont nearly- 
all came from the North. The election showed too plainly 
that the Republican party was to be a sectional party and 
that the slavery question was to be a bitter contest beween 
the North and the South. 

128. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 
When Buchanan entered upon his duties (March 4, 1857) he The 

X clCXS 

would fain have believed that the Kansas troubles were set- inthe 

Case 
tied and that the slavery question was at rest. In his in- 
augural address, when touching upon the legal power of the 
inhabitants of a Territory to prohibit slavery, he said : " This 
is happily a matter of but little practical importance. Besides 
it is a judicial question which legitimately belongs to the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, before whom it is now 
pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally 
settled." The decision to which Buchanan referred was the 
one rendered in the case of Dred Scott, a negro who was suing 
for the freedom of himself and family. The facts in 
this case were clear and simple enough. Scott was a slave 
who had been taken by his master first to Illinois where slavery 
was prohibited by the Ordinance of 1787; then to Minne- 
sota Territory where slavery was prohibited by the Missouri 
Compromise; and then to Missouri, a slave State. In Mis- 
souri, Dred, having been whipped for some ofifense, brought 
suit in the State courts for damages, claiming to have become 
a free man by his residence in Illinois and Minnesota. The 
master claimed that since Dred was descended from slave 
ancestors and had not been set free he was not a citizen 
and could not therefore sue in a court. This claim was at 
first decided against the master, and judgment was rendered 
in favor of the negro. After a long course of litigation 
the case finally reached the Supreme Court of the United 



400 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

States and was decided two days after Buchanan was inaugu- 
rated, the decision being rendered by Chief Justice Roger B. 
Taney. 

The decision in the Dred Scott case answered two questions : 
(i) Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves 
become a citizen of the United States? and (2) did Congress 
have power under the Constitution to prohibit slavery in the 
Territory in which it had been prohibited by the Missouri 
Compromise? In answer to the first question the Court de- 
clared that the ancestors of negro slaves were not regarded 
as persons by the founders of the government, but as chat- 
tels, as things that had " no rights or privileges but such 
as those who held the power and the government might choose 
to grant them.'' Dred Scott, therefore, was no citizen at all, 
but simply a thing, and as such he had no standing in court.' 
In answer to the second question the Court declared that the 
Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30', 
(p. 299) was unconstitutional and void, and that Congress had 
no more right to prohibit the carrying of slaves into any State 
or Territory than it had to prohibit the carrying of horses 
or any other property. The decision delighted the South, of 
course, but it cut the ground from un,der the feet of the 
Republicans, for it virtually said to them that even if they 
gained control of Congress they could not prevent the ex- 
tension of slavery. 
Effects If Buchanan really believed that the famous decision would 

Decision quiet slavery agitation and bring about " the extinction of 
geographical parties " he was cruelly disappointed, for the 
Dred Scott case did little else than to cause the people at 
the North to distrust the Supreme Court and to incite the 
anti-slavery forces to put forth greater efforts. The decision, 
however, gave to the slavery question a new legal aspect : 
it stripped Congress of every right and power in regard to 
the extension or restriction of slavery. If, after this decision. 
Congress should attempt to interfere with the matter of slavery 

1 Scott was remanded to slavery, but lie and his family were soon emancipated. 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 401 

in Kansas, or anywhere else, the slaveholder could justly claim 
that his constitutional rights were being invaded. The de- 
cision accorded perfectly with the doctrine of Calhoun : 
slavery was a domestic institution wholly beyond the power 
and jurisdiction of the federal government. 

129. THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 
At the time the Dred Scott decision was handed down, the The 

' Consti- 

pro-slavery people were attempting to bring Kansas in as a tution 

slave State. But this could hardly be done by fair means, for 
in 1857 the Free State people were in a decided majority. 
Slaveholders were reluctant to go to Kansas with their slaves 
until it was certain that slavery would be legal in the Terri- 
tory and also in the new State when it should be admitted. 
At no time were there in Kansas more than two or three hun- 
dred slaves. But the pro-slavery men were bent on making 
Kansas a slave State even if slaveholders and slaves were 
few in number. In 1857 about 2,200 voters — less than one 
ninth of the entire electorate — took part in choosing delegates 
to a convention that was to meet at Lecompton and frame 
a State constitution for Kansas. The Lecompton convention 
drew up a constitution and submitted it to the people for 
ratification. The voter was given the choice of voting for the 
constitution with slavery or for the constitution without slavery, 
but he could not vote against the constitution ; if he voted at 
all he would have to vote for the constitution whether he 
liked it or not. The form in which the constitution was sub- 
mitted was so objectionable to the Free State men that they 
refused to participate in the election. But the pro-slavery 
people ratified the constitution with a clause permitting slavery, 
and in February, 1858, President Buchanan sent a message to 
Congress recommending that Kansas be admitted as a State 
with the Lecompton constitution as its organic act. 

The Lecompton constitution met with fierce opposition in Tempo- 
Congress and no one opposed it more bitterly than Douglas, settie- 
who regarded it as a trick and a fraud upon the rights of the ^^^^^^ 
people. But the influence of the South was strong enough in Question 



402 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Congress to pass a measure admitting Kansas as a State under 
the Lecompton constitution, providing the voters of Kansas 
should accept the constitution and along with it a large grant 
of government land. The land was ofifered as a lure to induce 
voters to accept the constitution. But it would seem that there 
was no way by which Kansas could be made a slave State : 
the Lecompton constitution and the land that went with it were 
rejected by an overwhelming majority. So Kansas had to 
remain a Territory, albeit a slave Territory, for it should be 
clearly understood that the Dred Scott decision legalized the 
slavery that existed in Kansas and gave it the full protection 
of the Constitution of the United States. 

130. THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES. 

When Douglas ventured to oppose the Lecompton constitu- 
tion he brought upon himself the wrath of Southern Democrats 
and he also gravely offended many men of his own party in the 
North. In 1858 when he came up for reelection as Senator 
from Illinois he was so beset by enemies that he was forced 
to go before the people and plead his own cause. The Re- 
publican candidate for the senatorship was Abraham Lincoln, 
who, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, entered the 
field of politics with the view of doing what he could to pre- 
vent the spread of slavery. Lincoln challenged Douglas to a 
joint-debate and the two candidates stumped the State together. 
Douglas was a New Englander by birth, but late in boyhood he 
went to Illinois, w^here he was admitted to the bar before he 
reached manhood. At the age of twenty-two he w^as elected to 
the office of State's attorney, at twenty-three he was a member 
of the State legislature, at twenty-eight he w-as a judge, at 
thirty a member of the national House of Representatives, and 
at thirty-three a United States Senator. A short body — he 
measured scarcely over five feet in height — a head of tremen- 
dous size, and great intellectual power combined to gain for 
him the title of the Little Ciant. In his manners and personal 
appearance he was outlandishly grotesque. When speaking 
he raved and roared and gesticulated frantically. Once, while 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 403 

making a speech in the House, he took off and threw away 
his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat and assumed the air and 
aspect of a pugiUst ready for the fight. In marked contrast 
to the stormy Little Giant was the towering figure of his 
antagonist in debate, for Lincoln was truly a giant in stature 
and was of a reserved and quiet demeanor. Compared with 
the great and famous Douglas, Lincoln in 1858 was an ob- 
scure man. The story of his life up to the time of this debate 
has been told by himself in the following words : " I was 
born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. . . . 
My father removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer 
County, Indiana, in my eighth year. . , . There I grew up. 
There were some schools, so-called, but no qualifications were 
ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' 
to the rule of three. Of course, when I came of age I did 
not know much. I have not been to school since. I was 
raised to farm-work, which I continued until I was twenty- 
two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then 
I got to New Salem, where I remained a year as a sort of 
clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk War and I 
was elected a captain of volunteers, which gave me more 
pleasure than any I have had since. I ran for the legislature 
the same year (1832) and was beaten, the only time I was 
ever beaten by the people. In 1846 I was elected to the 
lower house of Congress. ... I was losing interest in politics 
when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. 
What I have done since is pretty well known. I am in height 
six feet four inches nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an av- 
erage one hundred and eighty pounds ; dark complexion, with 
coarse black hair and gray eyes." 

In the Lincoln-Douglas debate the subject of slavery ex- a House 
tension was brought out into a clearer light than it had ever Agaiifst 
stood before. Lincoln, at Springfield (Illinois), had said : "I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — 
I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the 



404 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, 
or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new — -North as 
well as South." Douglas attacked this utterance in the open- 
ing speech of the debate. He said : " \\'hy can't the Union 
endure divided into free and slave States? Why can't it exist 
upon the same principles upon which our fathers made it? 
Our fathers knew when they made this government that in 
a country as wide and broad as this — with such a variety of 
climate, of interests, of production — that the people neces- 
sarily required different local laws and local institutions in 
certain localities from those in other localities. They knew 
that the laws and regulations that would suit the granite hills 
of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the rice plantations 
of South Carolina. Hence they provided that each State 
should retain its own Legislature and its own sovereignty 
with the full and complete power to do as it pleased within 
its own limits in all that was local and not national. One of 
the reserved rights of the States was that of regulating the 
relation between master and slave, or the slavery question. 
At that time — that is, when the Constitution was made — 
there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which were 
slave States, and one was a free State. Suppose the doctrine 
of uniformity — all to be one or all to be the other — now 
preached by Mr. Lincoln, had prevailed then, what would 
have been the result? Of course the twelve slaveholding 
States would have overruled the one free State and slavery 
would have been fostered by a constitutional provision on 
every inch of the American continent instead of being left 
as our fathers wisely left it, each State to decide for itself." 
At Freeport the candidates asked each other questions. One 
of the questions asked by Lincoln was this : " Can the people 
of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the 
wish of any citizen of the L^nited States, exclude slavery from 
its limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?" 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 405 

This was equivalent to asking Douglas if the slavery which 
was existing in Kansas with a constitutional sanction could 
be abolished by the people of Kansas. The question was a 
fateful one for Douglas. If he answered " yes " he would 
be true to his doctrine of "squatter sovereignty " but he 
would ofifend the South, for the people of the South were un- 
willing to give up anything that the Constitution granted them. 
If he answered " no " he would offend those Democrats of 
the North, who wished to drive slavery out of the Territories. 
Douglas answered the question fairly and squarely. He said: 
" The right of the people to make it [a Territory of the United 
States] a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and 
complete under the Nebraska Bill." Douglas by this answer 
rallied to his support the Democrats of the North and com- 
pletely alienated those of the South. 

The joint debates of Douglas and Lincoln attracted the 
attention of the entire country and the meetings were attended 
by thousands. Douglas won the senatorship but in the de- 
bates Lincoln showed himself to be a man of such force and 
power that the people of the North began to regard him with 
favor as the leader of the Republican party. 

131. THE ELECTION OF i860. 
The excitement aroused by the Lincoln-Dougflas debates John 

.^ . , ^ . Brown's 

was mtensmed m the followmg year by an event known as Raid 
John Brown's Raid. In October 1859, John Brown, the man 
whom we saw engaged in the Kansas struggle, marched into 
Virginia with about twenty companions and seized the arsenal 
at Harper's Ferry. Brown's purpose was to stir up the ne- 
groes and cause them to rebel against their masters. He shot 
down a few innocent men and set free a few slaves but there 
was no general uprising of the negroes. After Brown had 
held the village for a few hours he and his band were sur- 
rounded by a small force of soldiers under Robert E. Lee and 
were captured and taken to the county jail. Brown was tried 
for treason and murder, was convicted, and was speedily 
hanged. The invasion caused a great uproar, but outside of 



406 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Virginia and one or two other border States it probably had 
but little direct influence upon the course events were taking. 
" It does not appear," says Rhodes, " that the Harper's Ferry 
invasion gained votes for Lincoln in the presidential contest 
of i860; nor did it, as was at first feared, injure the Repub- 
lican cause." 

The Lincoln-Douglas debates and John Brown's Raid were 
but preludes to the presidential election of i860. When the 
Democrats met in national convention at Charleston in April 
i860, they found themselves split by the slavery question into 
two irreconcilable factions. One faction, composed of Northern 
Democrats, stood firm for the doctrines of squatter sovereignty 
and upheld Douglas in his Freeport speech. The other fac- 
tion, composed of Southern Democrats, stood just as firm for 
the doctrine laid down in the Dred Scott decision and was un- 
alterably opposed to Douglas. The Douglas Democrats re- 
fused to abandon their position in regard to slavery, whereupon 
the delegations from many of the Southern States protested 
and withdrew. The Convention being unable to nominate a 
candidate at Charleston, adjourned to meet in June at Balti- 
more. Here an attempt was made to secure harmony, but in 
vain. Two Democratic tickets were put in the field. The 
Northern Democrats nominated Douglas and declared for 
popular sovereignty. The Southern Democrats nominated 
John C. Brcckenridge of Kentucky and declared (i) that 
Congress had no right to abolish slavery in the Territories 
and (2) that a Territorial legislature had no right to abolish 
slavery in a Territory. The Republican convention met at 
Chicago and adopted a platform which ( i ) demanded the 
admission of Kansas as a free State, and (2) denied the au- 
thority of Congress or of a Territorial legislature to allow 
slavery in any Territory. It was generally thought that William 
H. Seward would be the Republican nominee, but on the third 
ballot Lincoln was nominated. A fourth party known as the 
Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell of Tennessee 
and declared for " the Constitution of the Country, the Union 
of the States and the enforcement of the laws." 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 407 

The Presidential election of i860 was the most important The 

Cam- 
political contest in our history. But the tremendous sigmfi- paign 

cance of the election could not be understood until after the i860 
votes were cast. The immediate question before the people 
was the extension or restriction of slavery. The issues were 
clearly defined and the voters knew precisely what they were 
called upon to decide. The campaign was serious but not 
exciting. In many places election day was dull. The Re- 
publicans won the day: Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, 
Douglas, 12, Breckenridge, ^2 and Bell, 39. Lincoln carried 
every free State except New Jersey, whose electoral vote 
was divided. Of the popular vote Lincoln had 1,857,610; 
Douglas, 1,291,574; Breckenridge, 850,082; Bell, 649,124. 
Thus the great Democratic party went down in defeat and the 
newly-formed Republican party was entrusted with power. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The struggle in Kansas: Smith, 125-135; Burgess, 407-488; 
Rhodes II, 98-105, 150-156; McMaster VIII, 232-276; Wilson, 169- 
181. 

2. The beginnings of the Republican party: Wilson, 187-igo; 
Rhodes II, 45-49; Smith, iio-iii, 147-148. 

3. The Dred Scott Decision: Smith, 190-208; Burgess, 448-459; 
McMaster VIII, 277-281. 

4. The Lecompton constitution: Smith, 209-221; Burgess, 460-474; 
Rhodes II, 278-299. 

5. The Lincohi-Douglas debates : Smith, 230-233 ; McMaster VII, 
Z^Z-Z^T, Rhodes II, 318-339; Harding, 311-341. 

6. John Brown's Raid: Rhodes II, 384-414; McMaster VIII, 407- 
423. 

7. The election of i860: Wilson, 204-210; Burgess, 45-73; Mc- 
Master VIII, 442-466; Rhodes II, 454-509. 

8. The Panic of 1857: McMaster VIII, 288-295; Smith, 174-189; 
Dewey, 259-264; Coman, 242-243. 

9. Dates for the chronological table : 1857, i860. 

10. Summarize the chief events in the slavery struggle between 1846 
and i860. 

11. Give examples of personal liberty laws passed by some of the 
Northern States. What did Sewa^^d mean by the " Higher Law " '' 



4o8 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Give Mrs. Stowe's own account of the publication of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin: Ilalscy VII, 128-136. Tell of the opcratiuns of the Emigrant 
Aid Societies. Give a graphic description of John Brown's trial and 
execution. What prevented the nomination of Seward in i860? Read 
in the class Halstead's account of the nomination of Lincoln: Halsey 
VIII, 9-13. What was the "Irrepressible Conflict"? Harding, 342- 

357. 

12. Special Readings for Chapters XXXIV and XXXV. Schouler's 
History of the United States, Vol. V. Ida Tarbell, Life of Abraham 
Lincoln. H. P. Willis, Stephen A. Douglas. Francis Curtis, History 
of the Republican Party. O. G. Villard, John Brotvn, A Biography. 
W. H. Smith, A Political History of Slavery. Frederick Bancroft, W. 
H. Seward. 



XXXVI 

PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES (1850-1860) 

Since the election of Lincoln marked the ending of an old order 
of things and the beginning of a new order, it will be well at this 
point to turn from the course of political events and learn something 
of the material and intellectual progress which we were making 
during the years in which the great battle over slavery was being 
fought. In this chapter, therefore, we shall follow the progress in 
civilization made by the American people between 1850 and i860, a 
progress which, whether regarded absolutely or relatively, was amaz- 
ingly great. 

132. THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT (1850-1860). 
In the fifties, as in previous decades, the current of American The 

,...,,, , , , T,r T-. r o Build- 

hie still bore strongly toward the West. Before 1850 turn- ing 
pikes and canals were the most potent factors in the develop- Trunk 
ment of the western country. After 1850 railroads be- 
came the principal agency by which civilization was carried 
westward, twenty thousand miles of railroad having been 
built within a decade. Before 1850 the railroads built (p. 329) 
were, for the most part, short lines and were employed simply 
as feeders to the lakes, rivers, and canals, but in the fifties 
great trunk lines began to be carried from the seaboard cities 
across the Alleghanies clear to the Mississippi River. By 1850 
the New York Central had grown from a little seventeen mile 
railroad built in 1832 to connect Albany and Schenectady, into 
a great system by which one could travel from New York 
City to Buffalo. The next year the Erie road was completed 
to Dunkirk, thus establishing a second trunk line between 
New York and Lake Erie. In 1852 the Pennsylvania road 
reached Pittsburgh, and by 1853 the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road had climbed over the Alleghanies to Wheeling. Two 

409 



410 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



years later St. Louis was given through rail connection to New 
York. Farther south, by 1854, roads ran from Charleston 
and Savannah to Chattanooga, and by 1858 a line connected 
Chattanooga and Memphis. In the meantime, railroad con- 
struction in the IMiddle West was carried forward at such an 
astonishing rate that by i860 the region had become a network 




Transportation between the East and West after the building 
of the Trunk Lines. 



of railways and much of the land beyond the Mississippi 
River had been brought into easy railroad communication 
with the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. 

The building of the lines to the West, by making it easier 
than ever for homeseekers to reach the trans-Mississippi coun- 
try, caused Western development to proceed at an accelerated 
velocity. The growth of Minnesota in the fifties was the most 
marvelous event in the entire history of Western settlement. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 4H 

No Territory ever began its existence with fewer white inhab- 
itants than did Minnesota Territory when it was organized in 
1849. Its population at that time was less than 5,000. 
" There was a trading-post at Wakasha, a stone house at the 
foot of Lake Pepin, a mission house at Red Wing, and at 
Kaposia, and a trading-post at Mendota, and that was all." 
The settlement of the Territory was at first hindered by the 
presence of redmen, but in 1851 a tract of land, consisting of 
28,000,000 acres belonging to the Sioux Indians, was secured by 
treaty and was thrown open to the whites. Three years later 
Chicago and Rock Island on the Mississippi were joined by a 
railroad, and in 1856 the Sault Ste. Marie Canal was opened. 
Emigrants could now reach Minnesota by water route and by 
railroad and they fairly swarmed over the vacant lands of the 
Territory. In 1857 the population of Minnesota was found 
to be thirty times as great as it was in 1849. Accordingly, 
Minnesota Territory applied for admission as a State, and in 
1858 it joined the Union. ^ 

It was the swift Westward Movement of the fifties that made Kansas 
it necessary for Congress to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Bill Nebraska 
and thus establish territorial governments for the new com- 
munities in the Nebraska country. The slavery contest kept 
early Kansas in a state of ferment, yet it hastened rather than 
retarded the settlement of the Territory. In i860 Kansas had 
a population of more than 100,000. It was now ready for 
statehood and in 1861 it was admitted into the Union as a free 
State. Nebraska Territory did not grow so rapidly as Kan- 
sas, but its growth was healthy. When the first legislature 
of Nebraska met at Omaha in 1855 the population of the Ter- 
ritory was about 5,000; by i860, the population had increased 
six fold. As early as 1859 the Nebraskans began to urge 
their claims for admission into the Union, but they were com- 
pelled to bide their time. 

It was in the fifties also that the first settlements in Colorado 

1 The vast wilderness lying west of Minnesota and extending to the Rockies was 
left unorganized and continued without legal name or government until i86r 
when it was organized as the Territory of Dakota. 



412 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Colorado 

and 

Nevada 



Oregon 



Growth 
In 

Popula- 
tion 



were made. The early development of Colorado, like the de- 
velopment of most of the Rocky Mountain States, was due to 
the discovery of valuable mines for precious metals. In 1859 
a rich gold mine was discovered in the vicinity of Pike's Peak 
and forthwith there was a wild rush to the scene.^ It was 
estimated that within a year nearly 60,000 gold-seekers visited 
the newly discovered mines. Thousands of those " fifty- 
niners " remained and laid the foundations of Colorado. The 
mining towns of Denver, Boulder, and Pueblo were built so 
rapidly that they seemed to rfse out of the ground over night. 
The miners, feeling the need of law and order, at once organ- 
ized a new government under the name of the Territory of 
Jefiferson. In 1861, however, Congress organized the Territory 
of Colorado and the Territory of Jefferson passed out of ex- 
istence. Three days after Colorado was provided with a gov- 
ernment, Nevada was made a Territory. The development of 
Nevada was due almost wholly to the discovery of the great 
Comstock silver mine. 

The impulse of the Westward Movement in the fifties was 
felt clear across the continent. California by i860 had become 
a great State with a population of nearly 400,000. The rush to 
California threatened for a while the prosperity of Oregon. 
Many settlers left the Willamette Valley to seek their fortunes 
in the gold fields of the Sacramento region. But the tide soon 
turned toward Oregon again and in a few years the Territory 
had a population which was thought by Congress to be suffi- 
cient for Statehood. So, Oregon in 1859 was admitted to the 
Union. Salem was made the -capital of the new State, but 
Portland was then, as now, the largest city of Oregon and the 
commercial center of the Columbia Valley.- 

Thus the Westward Movement in the fifties resulted in the 
settlement and organization of a vast amount of territory. 
Within this period (1850-1861), California, Minnesota, Ore- 

1 The settlement of Nevada was really the result of an eastward rather than a 
westward movement, for many of the first settlers of the Territory came from 
California. In 1864 Nevada was admitted as a State. 

2 In 1853 a portion of Oregon was set off and organized as Washingtoii 
Territory. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 



413 



gon, and Kansas were admitted as States, and Utah, New Mex- 
ico, Washington, Nebraska, Dakota, Nevada, and Colorado 
were organized as Territories. But the full significance of the 
Westward Movement in the fifties is to be seen not in the new 
States and Territories which were organized, but in the won-' 
derful development of the Western States which were already 
formed. The population of the United States in 1850 was 
23,191,876; in i860, it was 31,443,321. The increase in popu- 




Center of population. 

lation of the whole country was a little more than 8,000,000; 
the increase in the Western States alone (not including Mis- 
souri) was more than 4,000,000.^ The population of Michigan 
increased in the fifties from 397,654 to 749,113; that of Wis- 
consin from 305,391 to 775,881 ; that of Illinois from 851,470 
to 1,711,951 ; that of Iowa from 192,214 to 674,913. 

Much of this increase was due to immigration, for the stream immigra- 

tion 

of immigrants which began to flow in such volumes in the 
forties flowed in even greater volume in the fifties. In the 
ten years before i860, 2,598,214 foreigners came to our shores 
— a greater number than came in the thirty years before 1850. 
Nearly a million of these newcomers were Germans and nearly 
another million were Irish. Of the Germans, great throngs 
made their way directly to the States of the Northwest and 
began to give their brain and brawn to the building up of the 
country. 

1 The center of population moved a greater distance westward in the fifties than 
ill any decade in our history, ^^n 1800 the center of population was about eighteen 
miles west of Baltimore; by 1840 it had crossed the Alleghanies; in 1850 it bad 
reached Parkersburg, West Virginia; and in i860 it was half-way across the 
State of Ohio. 



c 



414 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



133. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL GROWTH: 
INVENTIONS. 

The trunk lines of railroad established in the fifties gave a 
new life and a new movement to the commerce of the country/ 
Before 1850 the Western farmer was largely dependent upon 
the rivers of the Mississippi \'alley for the transi)ortation of 
his grain and he looked chiefly to the South for his market 
(p. 333). Rut the building of the trunk lines was like causing 
so many navigable rivers to flow direct from the West to the 




From "The Clipper Ship Era" by permission of Arthur H. Clftrk. 

A Clipper Ship. 

Atlantic seaboard. The railroads in the fifties became mighty 
channels of trade on which the products of Western farms 
could be borne to Eastern ports. And the trunk lines also en- 
abled the Western farmer to reach the markets of Europe. In 
the fifties our foreign shipments of grain assumed an impor- 

iTIie Panic of 1857. — The rapid development of the West in the fifties was 
accompanied by an over-investment in land and excessive railroad construction, 
with the result that in 1857 the country suffered a panic. Many of the Western 
railroads went into bankruptcy and business failures numbered nearly 5,000. The 
panic, however, was of short duration. In 1857 a slight reduction was made in 
the tariff and some writers claim that the change was partly responsible for the 
financial crisi? pf that year. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 415 

tance they had never had before. In the ten years before 
1853 our exports of grain were valued at less than $200,000,- 
000; in the ten years after 1853 they were valued at more than 
$500,000,000. This accession of grain shipments soon raised 
our foreign commerce to more than double its former volume, 
the value of our foreign trade being about $300,000,000 in 
1850 and $700,000,000 in i860. The foreign trade of i860 
consisted of about one-half exports and one-half imports ; we 
were thus buying about as much as we were selling and as a 
commercial nation we were standing on our own feet. 

Along v^^ith this growth in the volume of our foreign trade Growth 
there was a corresponding: growth in our merchant marine. Merchant 

... . . Marine 

The prosperity of our shipping interest in the fifties was due to 
several causes. In 1849 England by the repeal of an unfavor- 
able navigation act admitted American vessels to the traffic 
between Great Britain and her colonies, thus enabling our ves- 
sels to secure their full share of the British carrying trade. 
The rush to California stimulated the building of fast sailing 
vessels that would make the long journey around the Horn. 
The famous American clippers, the fastest sailing vessels ever 
placed upon the ocean, were built in large numbers during this 
period. The lower rates of the Walker Tariff (p. 348) reduced 
to a considerable degree the cost of building ships. Then ship 
subsidies at this period played a part in stimulating the growth 
of our merchant marine. In 1845 our government came to 

the aid of steam navigation (p. 3SQ) by subsidizing a transat- Ship 

° ^^ oo-^y :i & ^ Subsidies 

lantic line at the rate of $200,000 a year. The Collins line from 
New York to Liverpool was receiving in 1852 a subsidy of more 
than $850,000 a year. These favorable circumstances working 
together made the period of 1850 to i860 the most glorious 
in the history of our merchant marine. " We have now," said 
A. H. Stephens in i860, " an amount of shipping not only 
coastwise but to foreign countries which puts us in the front 
rank of the nations of the world." 

The progress of industry in the fifties was as marked as Agricui- 
the progress 01 commerce. Agriculture was our chief pursuit 
as it had always been. Within the decade the value of our 



4i6 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

farms and farm property doubled and the products of our 
• ^ fields increased in proportion. Great quantities of tobacco, 

"■ wheat, and corn were raised, but cotton was still the most im- 

portant product of the farm. In i860 we raised seven-eighths 
of all the cotton used in the world. 
Manu- Although agriculture was still in the lead, manufacturing 

was not far behind. Indeed, manufacturing by i860 had prac- 
tically overtaken agriculture, for in that year our manufactured 
products were worth $1,885,000,000, while our farm products 
were worth $1,910,000,000. As agriculture made its way west- 
ward, manufacturing followed in its wake. In 1850 the 
center of manufactures in tlie United States was near Har- 
risburg in Pennsylvania; by i860 it had almost reached Pitts- 
burgh. This shifting of the location of manufactures was due 
mainly to the fact that in the populous Middle West there were 
rising large cities that could supply the labor and capital nec- 
essary for manufacturing enterprises and that could at the 
same time consume a portion of the manufactured articles. 
I'atcntB Foremost among the aids to progress in the fifties were 

Great the great inventions which appeared between 1840 and i860, 
tions The progress due to invention may be measured by the number 

of patents ^ issued. In 1850 the number of inventions patented 
was 5,943 ; between 1850 and i860 the number was 23,140. 
These patents related to every field of human endeavor, to 
methods of transportation, to the transmission of intelligence, 
to the manufacture of textiles, to sewing, to heating, to light- 
ing, and to scores of other matters connected with the com- 
fort and convenience of daily life. In 1846 Elias Howe in- 
vented a sewing-machine w^hich soon replaced the simple 
needle, and before many years had passed it was possible to 
make into garments all the cloth that the improved looms might 
produce. The telegraph, invented by S. F. B. Morse in 1844, 
was in the fifties beginning to reveal its wonderful possibilities. 

1 In 1790 Congress passed the first law defining the rights of inventors (52). 
The term for which a patent was valid was first fixed at fourteen years. After 
1836 an extension of seven years was permitted in some cases. In 1870 the 
original term of a patent right wa§ fiyed at seventeen years. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 417 

By 1858 England and America were joined by cable, and 
Queen Victoria and President Buchanan were exchanging 
congratulations over electric wires. ^ By i860 all the principal 
places in the country were connected by a telegraph, and in 
1861 a telegraph line extending across the continent connected 
New York and San Francisco. 

The stimulus to business imparted by the telegraph was Post- 
intensified by reforms made in the postal service. In the 
forties adhesive postage-stamps began to be used and by the 
end of the fifties the use of stamps on letters was universal 
and was required by law. In 1845, Congress reduced the 
rates of postage on letters to five cents per half ounce for 
less than 300 miles and ten cents for distances over 300 miles. 
In 1 85 1 the rate was reduced to three cents for distances un- 
der 3,000 miles and six cents for distances over 3,000 miles. 
In 1863 the distance charge was abolished and the rate for 
letters in the United States was fixed at three cents with- 
out regard to distance. 

134. THE GROWTH OF CITIES. 

Although we were still an agricultural nation in i860 we The 
nevertheless could boast of several large cities ; for conditions Cities 
in the forties and fifties were fav- 
orable to urban growth. In 1850 
New York, Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, and New Orleans were the 
only cities that had a population 
greater than 100,000; in i860 Bos- 
ton, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, St. Lou- 
is, and Chicago had passed the 

100,000 mark. The growth of St. . m.- n -v 

. ° . , A Chicago Omnibus. 

Louis and Chicago during this 

period exceeded anything that had yet been witnessed in the 

history of our urban development. In 1840 St. Louis was a 

1 The first transatlantic cable was defective and soon ceased to work. By 
1866, however, through the perseverance and energy of Cyrus W. Field of New 
York, cable communication between the Old World and the New was successfully 
established. 




4i8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



St. Louis 

and 

CMcago 



South- 
ern 
Cities 



town of 16,000; in 1850 its population was 77,000; in i860 it 
contained 160,000 inhabitants and had practically overtaken 
Cincinnati and New Orleans. For a time St. Louis was the 
metropolis of the West, but in the end it was outnumbered by 
its rival on Lake Michigan. Chicago was fitted by nature to 
become a great mart. The railroads running to Eastern cities 
from Wisconsin and Minnesota passed by the head of Lake 
Michigan and much of the produce from the trans-Missis- 
sippian region and from northern Illinois and northern Indi- 
ana was naturally taken to the head of this lake for shipment. 
About 1840 Chicago, which was only a cluster of houses in 
1832, began to ship large quantities of wheat to the East by 
the Lakes, and then it began to grow. Its growth was quick- 
ened by the coming of McCormick's factory (p. 358). But the 
wonderful growth of Chicago really began in 1854 when it 
was connected by railroads with the cities of the Atlantic and 
with points on the Mississippi River.^ 

In the South, cities were few indeed, Richmond, Charleston, 
Savannah, Memphis, and New Orleans being the only places in 
i860 that had a population of over 20,000. " But two towns in 
Arkansas rose in degree above the merest villages, . . . Louisi- 
ana had but three towns of over two thousand population be- 
sides New Orleans and Baton Rouge . . . All but five towns 
in Mississippi were small villages. It was the same in North 
and South Carolina, the latter State having but three towns 
besides Charleston of over one thousand population. Mr- 
ginia was a State of petty villages." - 

1 Besides the nine great cities mentioned above, there were in i860 many other 
places that were well started on the road to permanent and prosperous city^hood. 
In New England, there were Providence, Worcester, Lowell, and New Haven; 
in the Middle States there were Newark, Jersey City, Wilmington, Reading, 
Pittsburgh, Troy, Rochester, and Syracuse; in the West there were Milwaukee, 
Detroit, Louisville, and San Francisco. Each of these had a population of over 
20,000, while five — Providence, Newark, Buffalo, Louisville, and San Francisco 
— had poDulations of over 50,000 each. 

2 F. E. Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, p. 31. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 



419 



135. EDUCATION AND LITERATURE. 

Progress in material things went hand in hand with progress I"?*'","" 
in education. The educational movement begun in the early 
part of the century (p. 336) acquired greater force year by 
year and by i860 there was in most of the States a well-estab- 
lished system of fairly good common schools. This was true 
not only of the older States but of many of the newer States 
as well. In the fifties, Wisconsin, Iowa. Texas, Tennessee, 
Kentucky, California, and Oregon all made provision for ele- 
mentary schools that should be free to all white children. But 
a school of the Middle ' ~] 

West in the fifties was a 1 

primitive affair, as is * i 

shown in the following de- ' ' 

scription of an early Iowa 
schoolhouse : " It was built 
of round logs, the spaces 
between them chinked and 
then daubed with mud. . . . 
There was no floor. The 
seats were made of stools 
or benches constructed by 
splitting a log, shaving ofif 
the splinters from the flat 
side and then putting four 
pegs into it from the round 

side for legs The door was made of clapboards. On either 
side one log was cut out and over the aperture was pasted 
greased paper which answered for a window. Wooden pieces 
were driven into a log running lengthwise immediately beneath 
the windows upon which was laid a board and this constituted 
the writing desks." 

Before i860 the education provided at public expense was Higher 
as a rule elementary in character and consisted simply of in- uon 
struction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But even before 
i860 in some places pupils in the public schools were carried 




The District School. 



420 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



beyond the mere rudiments of knowledge and were given in- 
struction in advanced subjects. As early as 1821 a public high 
school had been established in Boston. Before 1840 seven 
high schools had been established in New England, and before 
1850 seven had been established in the Middle States and in 
the States west of the Alleghanies. By i860 there were alto- 
gether in the United States about one hundred public schools 
of a grade that would entitle them to be called high schools. 

In a number of States by i860 the educational system in- 
cluded a State X^niversitv. This was the case in Alabama, 



The 
Golden 
Age of 
Literature 




-i '• 



f. 




An old view of the University of Wisconsin. 

Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, 
Virginia, South Carolina, and Utah (Territory). The Uni- 
versity of Iowa admitted women as well as men ; in the others 
women were not admitted until a later date than 1860.^ Nor- 
mal Schools for the training of teachers had also made their 
appearance by i860. Schools of this kind were maintained 
by State authority in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, 
Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

The literary production of the fifties surpassed anything 
that had gone before or that has followed after. The writers 
who first began to publish in the thirties (p. 338) were in their 
prime in the fifties and during these years they wrote the 

1 In i860 there were more than 30 colleges for women scattered throughout the 
country, most of them being in the South. Of these, three — Mount Ilolyoke, 
Rockford (in Illinois), and Elmira — gained prominence and maintained a high 
standard of work. 



PROGRESS IN THE FIFTIES 421 

great classics of American literature. Longfellow published 
his Hiazvatha and Miles Standish; Whittier, Bryant, and 
Lowell devoted much of their talent to the anti-slavery cause 
but in addition to the poetry which they directed against 
slavery they published masterpieces of verse which delighted 
their countrymen and which were free from partisan or sec- 
tional bias. " Hawthorne reached the summit of his genius 
in the Scarlet Letter at one end of the decade and the Marble 
Faun at the other." Holmes at this period produced the 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and Emerson gave to the 
world some of the finest of his incomparable essays. So fruit- 
ful, in fact, were the fifties in works of genius that it may 
rightly be called the " golden age " of American literature. 

But books in the fifties were not the chief agencies in the The 

. Daily 

diffusion of knowledge, for the day of the great daily news- News- 
paper had arrived. In large newspaper offices the simple 
printing press of the old type was being cast aside and the 
revolving press of Hoe — invented in 1846 — was printing 
newspapers so cheaply and rapidly that the daily paper could 
be enjoyed by all. While the price of the newspaper was low- 
ered its usefulness was increased by the freshness and variety 
of news which the newly-invented telegrapti made it possible 
to collect. The editorial page of the newspaper was perhaps 
never more potent than in the fifties. i\mong the great ed- 
itors of the time were James Gordon Bennett of the New 
York Herald, H. J, Raymond of the New York Times, Samuel 
Bowles of the Springfield Republican, and Horace Greeley of 
the New York Tribune. Of these, Greeley was the most in- 
fluential, for his paper was widely circulated not only in the 
East but in the Middle West also, and he wrote with such 
force and conviction that his readers came to regard the 
Tribune as a kind of political Bible. Greeley and Raymond 
and Bowles all opposed the extension of slavery and it was 
to the power of their pens that the Republican success of i860 
was largely due. 



422 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS J-OR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The era of railroad building: Smith, 59-74; Bogart, 230-235. 

2. Give the history of Morse's first telegraph line: Halsey VII, 36- 
47; McMaster, VII, 125-130. 

3. Give an account of Howe's invention of the sewing-machine: 
Halsey VII, 48-52. 

4. Dr. Morton's introduction of anesthetic ether: Halsey VI T, 70-76; 
McMaster VII, 98-99. 

5. The opening of the crystal palace in New York (1853) : Halsey 
VII, 137-143; Rhodes I, 414-416. 

6. The growth of the industrial city: Bogart, 256-258. 

7. The application of machinery to agriculture between 1840 and 
i860: Bogart, 276-278. 

8. American shipping between 1840 and i860: Bogart, 222-226; 
Rhodes II, 7-10. 

9. Educational development : Dexter, 155-203. 

10. Dates for the chronological tables : 1858, 1859. 

11. The Telegraph: Forman, Useful Inventions^ 252-265. 

12. The Sewing-Machine : Forman, Useful Inventions, 129-136. 

13. For the table of admitted States : Oregon, Minnesota, Kansas. 

14. Summarize the Westward Movement between 1830 and i860. 
Summarize the development of transportation agencies between 1800 and 
i860. Give an account of railroad building prior to 1840. Summarize 
the progress made in inventions between 1840 and i860. Discuss the 
subsidy system. Would it be desirable to subsidize our shipping now? 
When was letter postage reduced to two cents? 



XXXVII 

SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 

The election of Lincoln was quickly followed by the withdrawal of 
eleven Southern States from the Union and by a rupture between the 
North and the South which led both sections to prepare for war. 
What were the beginnings of the secession movement? How was the 
movement dealt with by the national government? What occurrences 
brought the two sections to the verge of war? What was the strength 
of the North compared with that of the South? 

136. SECESSION: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF 
AMERICA. 

Although the Republican platform declared only against the Effect 

extension of slavery and was silent on the subject of aboli- coin's 

11-rT-i 11 111 Election 

tion, the election of Lincoln was nevertheless regarded bv upon 

the South as the first step in a movement that would lead south 
to abolition. " We cannot close our eyes to the fact," said 
Douglas in the Senate in January 1861, " that the Southern 
people have received the result of that election [the election 
of i860] as furnishing conclusive evidence that the dominant 
party of the North, which is soon to take possession of the 
federal government, are determined to invade and destroy 
their Constitutional rights. Believing that their domestic in- 
stitutions, their hearthstones and their family altars are all 
to be assailed, at least by indirect means, and that the federal 
government is to be used for the inauguration of a line of 
policy which shall have for its object the ultimate extinction 
of slavery in all the States — old as well as new, South as 
well as North — the Southern people are prepared to rush 
wildly, madly, as I think, into revolution, disunion, war — - and 
defy the consequences." 

423 



424 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Secession 

of 

Seven 

States 



The 
Forma- 
tion 
of the 
Confed- 
erate 
Govern- 
ment 



Donc^las did not state tlie case too strongly, for at the very 
nionient he was speaking, the South was rushing into disunion. 
J'^-ven before the election of Lincoln was an accomplished fact 
South Carolina began to look forward to a withdrawal from 
the Union, and by December 20, i860, a convention of dele- 
gates had repealed the ordinance whereby the Constitution 
of the United States was ratified by South Carolina in 1788, 
and had declared that the Union subsisting between that 
State and other States under the name of the United 
States of America was dissolved. The reasons given for this 
secession were that South Carolina had entered into the 
Union as by a compact with the other States and that the com- 
pact had been broken; that the Personal Liberty laws (p. 393) 
were destructive of the slaveholders' rights under the Constitu- 
tion ; that the non-slaveholding States had elected to the Pres- 
idency a man whose opinions and purposes were hostile to 
slavery; that after March 4, 1861, the federal government 
would be the enemy of the slaveholding States, the guar- 
antee of the Constitution would no longer exist, and the equal 
right of the States would be lost. South Carolina issued an 
address to the other slaveholding States appealing to them 
to join in forming a Confederacy, and by February i, Missis- 
sippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had 
responded to the appeal and had left the Union. 

Events in the South now moved forward with almost breath- 
less rapidity. No sooner had the seceding States withdrawn 
from the old Union than they at once took steps to form a 
new Union. On February 4, 1861, delegates from the seven 
seceding States met at Montgomery, Alabama, and drew up 
a constitution for the government of a new republic which 
was to be known as the Confederate States of America. The 
constitution of the Confederate States plainly asserted the 
doctrine of State sovereignty and fully and explicitly rec- 
ognized slavery as a lawful institution. " The corner-stone 
of our new government rests," said A. H. Stephens, " upon 
the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man : 
that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his 



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'V 



SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 



425 



natural and normal condition." The constitution drawn up 
for the Confederacy bore a close resemblance to the Consti- 
tution of the United States both in respect to the organization 
of the new Confederate government and to its powers. The 
constitution of the Confederacy, however, differed from the 
Constitution of the United States in the following impor- 
tant particulars: it forbade the importation of slaves from 
foreign countries ; it gave the President a term of six years 
but made him ineligible for reelection ; it provided that Con- 
gress could permit heads of departments to have seats upon 
the floor of either house, with the privilege of discuss- 
ing any measures affecting their 
several departments ; it forbade the 
enactment of a protective tariff. 
After the constitution of the Con- 
federacy was drawn up, a tempo- 
rary government was at once es- 
tablished. Jefferson Davis of Mis- 
sissippi was chosen President and 
A. H. Stephens of Georgia, Vice- 
President. On February 14 Davis 
was inaugurated with pomp and 
ceremony in Montgomery, the 
temporary capital. In his inau- 
gural address he said : " Doubly 
justified by the absence of v/rong 
on our part and by wanton ag- 
gression on the part of others, 

there can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism 
of the people of the Confederate States will be found equal to 
any measure of defense which honor and security may re- 
quire." Davis promptly selected a cabinet and in a few days 
the new Confederate government was in full operation, doing 
the things that the government of a sovereign nation is accus- 
tomed to do. It was of ominous significance that the new 
government was especially active in preparing for the exi- 
gency of war. 




Jeiferson Davis. 



4^6 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Buchan- 
an's 
Inactivity 



"Star 
of the 
West" 



137. THE INACTIVITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT; 
EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 

While the men of the South were thus vigorously pushing 
forward with tiieir plans for secession, the government at 
Washington looked on as if stupefied and failed to raise a 
hand to check the movement which was tearing the country 
to pieces. Buchanan in his message to Congress (December 
i860) referred to secession as being neither more nor less 
than revolution, but it was a revolution that would have to 
run its course, for the federal government, in the opinion 
of the President, had no means of coercing a State : no State 
had a right to secede, but if a State should secede, there was 
no power to bring it back into the Union. " The message," 
said Seward in disgust, " shows conclusively that it is the 
duty of the President to execute the laws — unless some- 
body opposes him ; and that no State has a right to go out 
of the Union — unless it wants to." In this state of inde- 
cision and inactivity, Buchanan allowed the secessionists to 
seize the property and forts of the United States and to dis- 
regard the federal laws. By January i, 1861, South Carolina 
had actually taken possession of all the forts in Charleston 
harbor except Fort Sumter, which was held by federal troops 
under the command of Major Robert Anderson. Early in 
January Fort Sumter was in need of supplies and a merchant 
steamer, the Star of the West, was sent from New York 
to Charleston bearing men and provisions for the fort. As the 
steamer entered the harbor with the American flag flying, she 
was fired upon from masked batteries and compelled to turn 
back, for she was unarmed. Thus Buchanan's management 
of afifairs was so lacking in firmness that eflfectual aid could 
not be given to a fort that was in need of help. And this 
inactivity of the federal government was at a time (January 
3) when only South Carolina had to be dealt with, for only 
she had as yet seceded. 

Buchanan was not altogether to blame for the weakness 
of the federal government, for if he had attempted to put 



SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 427 

down secession with a strong hand he would doubtless have The 

. . . . , Critten- 

been blocked by the Congress which was in session and which den 

•^ . Compro- 

was largely under the influence of Southern leaders. The mise 

only solution Congress could offer for the difficulties con- 
fronting the country lay in the direction of compromise and 
concession. Many were the schemes of compromise that were 
brought forward, the most important being that offered (De- 
cember i860) by Senator Crittenden of Kentucky. Crit- 
tenden proposed to amend the Constitution in a way that 
would prohibit slavery north of parallel 36° 30', and permit 
it south of that line. The proposed compromise would have 
taken from the slaveholder his rights under the Dred Scott 
decision in so far as new States north of the Missouri Com- 
promise line were concerned, but it would have fortified him 
for all time in his rights south of that line. 

The Crittenden compromise was popular in the North, and opposi- 
it was quite generally believed that if it had been put to to the 
a popular vote it would have been sustained by an over- mise 
whelming majority. But many of the leaders in Congress, 
both among the Republicans and among the Democrats of 
the South, were opposed to compromise of any kind. Lin- 
coln also strongly opposed the Crittenden compromise. On 
February i, he wrote to Seward: "On the question of ex- 
tending slavery under the national auspices I am inflexible. 
I am for no compromise which assists or permits the ex- 
tension of this institution on soil owned by the nation." In 
taking this stand Lincoln was upholding the main plank in 
the platform of the party which elected him. If he had 
supported the Crittenden compromise it would in all prob- 
ability have been adopted by Congress and approved by the 
nation. But as it was, Crittenden's plan failed and with it 
perished all hope of compromise. Either the seceding States 
must be allowed to depart in peace or there must be war. 

138. LINCOLN AND THE FORTS. 

Lincoln soon made it clear that if he was to have his way 
the seceding States would not be allowed to depart in peace. 



428 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Lin- 
coln's 
First 
Inaugu- 
ral 



The 
Mean- 
ing 
of 

Lincoln's 
Speech 



In his inaugural address (March 4, 1861) he said: "No 
State upon its mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void. . . . 
To the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Con- 
stitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the 
Union he faithfully executed (91) in all the States. In doing 
this there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall 
be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The 
power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and pos- 
sess the property and places belonging to the government 
and to collect the duties and imposts. . . . The mails, unless 
repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the 
Union. . . . ( )ne section of our country believes slavery is 
right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it 
is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only 
substantial dispute. . . . Physically speaking, we cannot sepa- 
rate. ... In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The 
government will not assail you. You can have no conflict 
without being yourselves the aggressors. We are not enemies, 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may 
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all 
over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature." 

It was plain enough that these words could have been 
written only by a man whose heart was overflowing with 
kindness, but the country had yet to learn that the hand that 
wrote them was a hand of steel. There was no doul)t of 
the meaning of the address : it meant that Lincoln intended 
to execute the laws of the United States on the soil of the 
Confederate States ; that he would take possession of the 
Southern forts ; that he would collect the customs duties at 
Southern ports. He would do these things and if resistance 
were offered he would meet force with force. This was 




Abraham Lincoln. 



430 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

what the country at large understood by the address. " We 
all put the same construction on the inaugural," said L. V. 
Washington, a Southern leader. " We agreed that it was 
Lincoln's purpose at once to attempt the collection of the reve- 
nue, to reenforce and hold Fort Sumter and Pickens, and 
retake the other places. He is a man of will and firmness. 
His cabinet will yield to him with alacrity, I think." 
Opinion The country soon witnessed a test of Lincoln's mettle. 

in re- ^ -^ 

gardto Fort Sumter was still held by federal troops, but the people 
Sumter of South Carolina desired the evacuation of the fort, for the 
flag that waved over it was now regarded by them as the 
emblem of a foreign nation and it was offensive to their 
eyes. Lincoln believed that the fort should not be evacuated, 
but that it should be furnished with supplies. Before taking 
action he consulted his cabinet.^ Five members of that body 
thought it would be unwise to hold the fort while only two 
were in favor of holding it. Among those who were in 
favor of evacuating the fort was the great and powerful 
Seward, who still hoped for conciliation and who thought that 
a quiet evacuation of Sumter would strengthen the Union 
sentiment in the South and would tend to restore peace. 
Many leading men in the country agreed with Seward. In 
the Senate, which was in extra session, Douglas on March 
15 declared that peace was the only policy that could save 
the country or save the Republican party, and that the with- 
drawal of Major Anderson from Sumter was demanded by 
" duty, honor, patriotism, and humanity." But Lincoln was 
undeterred. He felt that if he surrendered Sumter he would 
surrender all. So he gave orders (April 6) to the army and 
navy to join forces and relieve Fort Sumter with men and 
provisions. 

1 In choosing his cabinet Lincoln aimed to select men who would represent the 
different sections of the country. Seward was the Secretary of State; Chase 
(P- 397) the Secretary of the Treasury; Oideon Welles, of Connecticut, the Secre- 
tary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, the Secretary of the Interior; 
Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, the Post-Master General; Edward Bates, of 
Missouri, the Attorney General; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, was for a 
while the Secretary of War, but he was soon replaced by Edwin M. Stanton, of 
Ohio. 



SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 



431 



But the relief of the fort was not achieved. When the The 

, Surrender 

government of the Confederate States heard of Lincoln s of the 
action, Davis and his cabinet decided to take the fort before 
the federal forces should arrive. In discussing the matter, 
Robert Toombs, a member of the Confederate Cabinet and 
a most fervent leader of the secessionists, said : " The fir- 
ing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than 
any the world has yet seen. At this time it is suicide — mur- 
der — and would lose us 
every friend at the North. 
It is unnecessary ; it puts us 
in the wrong; it is fatal." 
Nevertheless, Davis tele- 
graphed to Beauregard, an 
officer of the federal army 
who had joined the Con- 
federates, to demand the 
surrender of the fort and 
in case of refusal to open 
fire upon it and reduce it. 
On April 11, Beauregard 

made the demand, which was promptly refused. The next day 
firing began and as the fort had but sixty-four men and but 
little ammunition it could not offer effective resistance. So, 
on April 14, Fort Sumter was compelled to surrender. Al- 
thought there had been heavy firing, no life was lost on either 
side. 




IlKivANS I. 

Hat bor Ft.Moidtri 

— 7 Ft.Samter 

JAMEhJSLAND / ^^^jPt. Wagner 

A TLANTIC 
OCEAN 



'2T-sr'^^ 



^ 




Charleston harbor. 



139. PREPARATION FOR WAR: THE SECOND SECESSION. 

The firing on Fort Sumter made it certain that the South The 

, , . . , CaUto 

nitended to fight and it caused Lmcoln to prepare for a Armi 

bloody conflict. He could not rely upon the regular army 
to cope with the situation, for the federal troops mustered 
only about 18,000 men all told and they were so widely 
scattered over the country at the various army-posts that 
they were unavailable for instant use. Accordingly, the Pres- 
ident was compelled to summon the militia (92) to his aid. 



Response 



432 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

As soon as the news of the bombardment of Sumter reached 
Washington, Lincoln telegr;.phed to the governors of the 
different States calling for militiamen to the number of 75,000 
to aid in suppressing combinations of men in the South who 
were obstructing the execution of the laws of the United 
States. " I appeal,'' he said. " to all loyal citizens to favor, 
facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the in- 
tegrity and existence of our national honor and the per- 
petuity of popular government." 
The The effect of this call to arms was to cause men to take 

sides and decide whether they were for a Union consisting of 
all the States, the Union which Lincoln was trying to up- 
hold, or whether they were for letting the seceding States 
de])art in peace. For now all that the South asked was that 
it be allowed to withdraw in peace, that it be let alone. In 
the North the people rose almost as one man in support of 
the Union. The New York Times voiced Northern sentiment 
as follows: "The people will respond to this demand [for 
volunteers] with alacrity and exultation. They ask nothing 
better than to be allowed to fight for the Constitution which 
their fathers framed. Whatever may have been their jjolitical 
differences, there has never been a moment when they were 
not ready to sink them all in devotion to their common country 
and in defense of their national flag." The response came not 
only from native-born Americans but from foreigners who 
had only recently come to our shores. Out of the Eastern 
cities came the Irish who left their old home to escape fam- 
ine. Out of the West came the German immigrants of '48 
(p. 359) who had left the Latherland to escape tyranny. The 
rush to arms was as prompt as it was universal. Massachu- 
setts was ready on the instant and within a day after the call 
was received, her Sixth Regiment mustered on Boston Com- 
mon and started for the scene of action. The popularity of 
Lincoln's action may be measured by the response ; in answer 
to the first call for 75.000 volunteers and to a subsequent call 
made a few weeks later for 40,000 more, there were by July 
I, in the field at the command of the government. 3io,cxx:) men. 



SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 433 

At the time of the tirinsj on Sumter, seven slave States, The 

. ,^ . Second 

Delav^are, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolma, Tennessee, secession 
Kentucky, and Arkansas, were wavering between loyalty to the 
secession movement and loyalty to the Union. But the clash 
at the fort and the call for troops made it necessary for 
every State to decide whether it was for Union or disunion. 
Delaware quite promptly decided for the Union. Maryland 
hesitated and at one time seemed to be on the brink of se- 
cession, but at last she decided that a State had no right to 
withdraw from the Union. Kentucky remained in the Union, 
although she tried to pursue a course of neutrality. Mis- 
souri decided against secession some weeks before the call 
for troops and she remained loyal to the Union throughout, 
her death-roll in the Union army being as great as the death- 
roll of Massachusetts. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, 
and Arkansas seceded and were admitted into the Confed- 
eracy. After the secession of Mrginia, Richmond was made 
the capital of the Confederacy. 

140. THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 

Lincoln's call for the troops was regarded in the South 
as a declaration of war. Accordingly, on May 6, 1861, the 
Confederate Congress passed an act recognizing the existence 
of war between the United States and the Confederate States. 
So, in less than a month after the firing upon Sumter the 
Union and the Confederacy were facing each other in battle 
array. What was the relative strength of the two contestants? 
In what respect was the outlook favorable to the North, and 
in what respect was it favorable to the South? 

In point of numbers the odds were all with the North. The Numbers 
twenty-two States that remained with the Union had a popula- 
tion of 22,000,000 ; the population of the seceding States was 
5,500,000 whites and 3,500,000 blacks. The military popula- 
tion of the North was about 4,600,000; that of the South was 
about 1,150,000. Also in point of wealth and resources the 
North was far ahead of the South. The total value of all 
real and personal property in the South in i860 was about 



434 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Wealth 

and 

Resources 



The 
Trans- 
portation 
System 



The Task 
of the 
South 



$5,000,000,000; in the North the value of these two kinds 
of property was nearly $11,000,000,000. Especially did the 
North surpass the South in the manufacturing industries 
The total value of Northern manufactures in i860 was 
$1,730,000,000, while the manufactures of the South were 
valued at only $155,000,000, the proportion being about eleven 
to one in favor of the North. In the manufacture of iron, 
the indispensable article of war, the South had made no prog- 
ress at all. Here the advantage of the North was very great, 
for it had in abundance the shops in which the weapons of war 
could be fashioned. If the South was to be properly sup- 
plied with the munitions of war it would have to buy them 
from abroad. This it hoped to be able to do by selling its 
cotton and tobacco to England and to other foreign countries. 
In the production of grain and meat and many other kinds of 
food-supplies the North was infinitely richer than the South. 

The transportation system of the country was also favor- 
able to the North. The net-work of railroads in the Northern 
States made it possible to mobilize troops quickly and place 
them at strategic points : at Washington, at Wheeling, at Cin- 
cinnati, at St. Louis. In the South railroads were compara- 
tively few in number and their assistance in the movement 
of troops could not be as great as that rendered by Northern 
railroads. Then the trunk lines built in the fifties vvere of 
incalculable value to the Union cause, for by means of 
these the channels of trade between the East and West 
could be kept open. The South could close the Mississippi 
but there would still be the railroads to carry the produce 
of the Western farmer to the seaboard and to act as bands 
of iron for holding the Western country in the Union. So 
important was the service rendered by the trunk lines during 
the war that many believe that the Union was saved by the 
railroads. 

In one important respect the outlook was favorable to the 
South: its task was much lighter than the task lai:5 out for 
itself by the North. For. what had the men of the North set 
out to do? They had undertaken to save the Union, to main- 



SECESSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS 435 

tain the integrity of the nation. To do this they would have 
to subdue the wills of five and one-half millions of strong and 
determined people and they would have to conquer and crush 
piece by piece a country five times as large as France. It was 
an offensive warfare that the North had to wage. And what 
was the task of the South? Simply to preserve the independ- 
ence of the Confederate States. To do this the South had 
only to defend itself against attack and invasion. It was not 
compelled to go forth and conquer: it could win without 
conquering a single foot of territory ; all it had to do was 
to hold its ground. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Secession: Hart IV, 169-178; McMaster VIIi, 510, 521; Davis 1, 
71, 168-170; Chadvvick, 126-150; Wilson, 239-244; Rhodes III, 114- 
145- 

2. Compromise : Chadwick, 166-183; McMaster VIII, 511-514; 
Rhodes HI, 150-170, 253-269, 310-312. 

3. The Confederate States of America: Hart IV, 189-192; Chad- 
wick, 47-264; Rhodes III, 291-320; Wilson, 249-251; Davis I, 229-241. 

4. The Forts: McMaster VIII, 493-509; Hitchcock, 252-272; 
Rhodes III, 325-359; Chadwick, 184-246; Halsey VIII, 58-67; Davis 
I, 269-288. 

5. The call to arms: Hart IV, 221-224; Rhodes III, 368-404, Ropes 
I, 90-97- 

6. Bull Run: Rhodes HI, 443-453; Ropes I, 121-156; Davis I, 356- 
360. 

7. What prevented the secession of Maryland? Characterize Lin- 
coln, Seward, Stanton, Chase, and Welles: Halsey VIII, 35-43. Was 
the South well prepared for war? State the grievances of the South 
from the Southern standpoint. Read in class a passage from the 
speech made by Davis upon withdrawing from the Senate : Harding, 
364-369. To what extent was there opposition in the North to Lin- 
coln's course? Did Lincoln's course precipitate the war? What mo- 
tives led England to support the North? Was slavery the sole cause 
of the war? Was secession a popular movement? Give an account 
of Lincoln's journey to Washington. Tell the story of the Peace Con- 
vention. Read in class " Dixie." Read in class Bryant's " Our 
Country's Call." Give an account of how Lincoln made up his cabinet : 
(Halsey VIII, 18-27). 



436 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



8. Union Troops. The whole number of troops furnished during 
the entire period of the Civil War to the Union armies by each of 
the several States and Territories is shown in the following table : 
Alabama 2,576 Mississippi 545 



Arkansas 8,289 

California I5>725 

Colorado 4,9^3 

Connecticut 5J,937 

Dakota 206 

Delaware 11,230 

District of Columbia 11,912 

Florida 1,290 

Illinois 255,037 

Indiana 193.748 

Iowa 75,797 

Kansas 18,069 

Kentucky 5i,743 

Louisiana 5,324 

Maine 64,973 

Maryland 33,995 

Massachusetts 122,785 

Michigan 85,479 

Minnesota 23,913 



Missouri 100,616 

Nebraska 3,i57 

Nevada i ,080 

New Hampshire 32,930 

New Jersey 67,500 

New Mexico 6,561 

New York 409,561 

Ohio 304,814 

Oregon 1,810 

Pennsylvania 315,017 

Rhode Island 19,321 

Tennessee 31,092 

Texas 1,965 

Vermont 3^,540 

Washington 964 

West Virginia 31,872 

Wisconsin 91,029 



Total . 2,494,592 



9. Special Reading. J. K. Hosmer, The Appeal to Anus. J. W. Bur- 
gess, Civil War and the Constitution, Vol. I. J. C. Reed, Brothers' 
War. Alexander Stephens, The War Bctivcen the States. Jefferson 
Davis, The Rise and Tall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1. 



XXXVIII 

THE CIVIL WAR 

The war which began with the firing on Sumter, on April 12, 1861, 
was not brought to an end until April 26, 1865. What was the history 
of those four long years of civil strife? What great questions, for- 
eign and domestic, did the war bring to the front? What were the 
leading military operations of the war? Who were its great leaders 
and what great battles were fought ? 

141. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE WAR: 1861. 

The first loss of life in the Civil War occurred in the city Baiti- 

more 
of Baltimore. On April 19, 1861, while the Sixth Massachu- 
setts Regiment (p. 432) was passing through the streets of 
Baltimore on its way to Washington, it was attacked by a 
crowd of secessionists, and several soldiers and a number of 
citizens were killed. 

The first skirmish between organized troops occurred in y®^^ 
what is now West Virginia. Less than four per cent, of the 
population of the trans-Alleghany counties of Virginia were 
slaves. The young men of western Virginia were sent to 
schools in free States. The products of the region were borne 
to market on rivers that flowed through Pittsburgh or to 
towns in the Mississippi Valley. The faces of the people 
in the western counties, therefore, were turned to the West 
and to the North rather than to the South. So when Vir- 
ginia seceded from the Union (April 17, 1861) the people 
beyond the Alleghany mountains refused to go out with her. 
They took steps at once to secede from the seceder and to 
form a government of their own. In order to check this move- 
ment, Confederate troops were hurried into western Vir- 
ginia. Union troops under General G. B. McClellan were on 
the ground and on June 3 there was a skirmish at Philippi 

437 



4.5S 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Manassas 



Wilson's 
Creek 



between the two armies.' The Confederate troops were 
routed, but the loss on both sides was small. 

The first real battle of the Civil War was fought near Manas- 
sas, about thirty miles southwest of Washington. Lincoln's 
call for troops quickly brought a large army to Washington 
and to the eastern part of Virginia, and by the middle of 
the summer it was determined to move a portion of this 
army against Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. On 
July 1 6 the Union general, McDowell, marched out of Wash- 
ington with about 30,000 men to give battle to the Confed- 
erate generals, Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston, who were 
stationed near Manassas along the stream of Bull Run with 
about 22,000 men. On July 21 the two armies met in battle 
and the Union army was disastrously defeated. The Union 
troops retreated and the retreat did not stop until many of 
the soldiers were within the fortifications at Washington. 
The retreat was not due to cowardice but to a lack of train- 
ing and to poor organization. Nevertheless, the defeat of the 
army at Bull Run caused the people of the North to sufi'er 
keen humiliation. 

Next to the battle of Bull Run, the severest engagement in 
1 86 1 was at Wilson's Creek in Missouri. Although Missouri 
refused to secede (p. 433) there were, nevertheless, a great 
many secessionists in the State, and the secession movement 
was not put down without a sharp struggle. An army in sym- 
pathy with the Confederate cause was organized and by August 
there was a force of 10,000 men assembled under General 
Price at Wilson's Creek ready for battle. On August 19, Price 
was attacked by the Union general, Nathaniel Lyon, who had 
only 6,000 men. Lyon was killed in the battle, and as soon 
as their leader fell the Union soldiers became discouraged and 
retreated. The loss in life on the LTnion side was about the 
same as that on the side of the Confederates. 



1 The people of western Virginia carried forward their plan of sciiaration. On 
June II, 1861, delegates from forty western counties met at W^heeling and 
organized a new State which in 1863 was admitted as the State of West X'irginia. 



THE CIVIL WAR 439 



142. THE BLOCKADE; THE TRENT AFFAIR. 

As soon as Lincoln saw there was going to be a war, he The 
issued (April 19, 1861) a proclamation declaring a blockade of audits 
the ports of the seven States which had then seceded, and an- 
nounced that if any vessel should approach or attempt to leave 
any port of these States it would first be warned and if after 
warning it should again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded 
port it would be captured and treated as a prize of war. The 
purpose of the blockade was to prevent the South from sell- 
ing its cotton and tobacco to the countries of Europe and 
receiving in exchange guns, ammunition, and other military 
supplies. At first the blockade was ineft'ective, for at the 
outset the navy which was to maintain the blockade con- 
sisted of only ninety vessels, whereas the seacoast to be con- 
trolled contained nearly two hundred harbors and was more 
than three thousand miles in length. Congress,^ however, 
supported Lincoln in his effort to strengthen the navy and 
to render the blockade effective, and in less than a year after 
the blockading of the ports began, the coast was so well 
guarded that only the swiftest and boldest craft would risk the 
danger of breaking through the line. 

Considered as a war measure, the blockade was a success, The 
for it struck a deadly blow at the trade of the South. But of the 

1 1 ti 1 r r • • • Blockade 

smce it also struck a blow at the trade of foreign nations it upon 

. . ^. . . , Foreign 

was unfortunate m its eirects upon our international relations. Nations 
It was the policy of Lincoln to regard the disturbance in 
the South not as a war, — Congress at no time formally de- 
clared war against the Confederacy — but as a mere insur- 
rection, an uprising which he could suppress by the arm of 
the militia, for Congress had given the President the power 
to use the militia in suppressing insurrections (59). But when 
Lincoln announced the blockade he virtually admitted that he 
was waging a war with the South, for in the eyes of inter- 

1 Congress was summoned by Lincoln to meet in special session on July 4, 1861. 
It legalized all that Lincoln had done in respect to the army and navy; it gave 
the President authority to call for 500,000 more soldiers to serve for a period of 
three years; and it appropriated $500,000,000 for the support of the troops. 



440 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

national law no blockade is Icijal unless there is war. This 
was the view taken by (ireat i'.rilain and France, and after 
the blockade was declared the governments of these two na- 
tions recognized the Confederate States as belligerents and 
proclaimed themselves neutral nations. England was only 
too willing to grant belligerents' rights to the South, for she 
wished to keep on friendly terms with the Southern people. 
More than half of the cotton raised in the South went to 
the spindles of British factories, and the great manufactur- 
ing cities of England were almost wholly dependent upon 
the supply of Southern cotton. But in the United States 
the action of England in recognizing the Confederacy as a 
belligerent was taken as an evidence of unfriendliness. 
The The unfriendly feeling caused by England's proclamation 

Affair of neutrality was intensified by an incident known as the 
Trent Affair. On November 8, 1861, the San Jacinto, an 
American man-of-war commanded by Captain Wilkes, over- 
hauled in the Bermuda Channel the British Mail-steamship 
Trent and took from her by force James Mason and John 
Slidell, who had been commissioned by the Confederate gov- 
ernment to represent its interests in England and France. The 
commissioners were carried to Fort Warren in Boston harbor 
and imprisoned. The English government at once demanded 
the liberation of Mason and Slidell, on the ground that Great 
Britain was a neutral power. In making this demand Eng- 
land was only insisting upon a principle which the United 
States itself had always strongly insisted upon, namely, that 
a neutral power should not be subjected to the right of search 
(p. 263). Seward, the Secretary of State, acceded to the 
English demand. " If I decide this case," said he, " in favor of 
my own government, I must disallow its most cherished prin- 
ciples and reverse and forever abandon its essential policy. 
. . . We are asked to do to the r)ritish nation just what 
we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us." Mason 
and Slidell were accordingly released, placed on an English 
vessel and taken to England. 

It was not pleasant to yield in this manner but it was highly 



THE CIVIL WAR 441 

important to avoid a breach with Enj^land, for if the United The 

.,,.., . . . . IT- Attitude 

States had msisted on rctammg the commissioners, the ling- of 

England 
lish government would doubtless have retaliated by recogniz- 
ing the independence of the Confederacy. And England might 
have gone further and broken the blockade and renewed her 
trade with the South. It was to her interest to do this for 
her mills needed cotton, which could be secured only at 
Southern ports. But the English government resisted the 
temptation of recognizing the independence of the Confed- 
erate States and as far as outward forms were concerned, 
maintained friendly relations with the United States through- 
out the war. In doing so it acted in harmony with the 
main current of English sentiment. The governing classes in 
England were inclined to favor the South, but the working 
classes for the most part sympathized with the North. They 
felt that the contest in America was between free labor and 
slave labor and they wanted the North to win even though 
British factories should close and British workmen should 
be idle. 

143- ORGANIZATION AND PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 
By the middle of the summer of 1861 it was plain to the Mcciei- 

. lan's 

mind of Lincoln that the raw regiments that were flock- work of 

. . . Organiza 

mg into Washington must be drilled and trained for fighting, uon 
Accordingly, he set about making radical changes in the or- 
ganization of the army. After the rout at Bull Run he sum- 
moned McClellan from West Virginia and placed him in 
command of all the forces in and around Washington. 
McClellan soon showed that he was just the man whom the oc- 
casion required. Pie was highly trained himself and he knew 
how to train others. He could win the love of soldiers and 
at the same time hold them under the strictest discipline. 
When he came to Washington he found the city infested with 
swarms of military loafers. The little Napoleon, as McClellan 
was called, quickly set officers and men to work, drilling and 
in other ways preparing for actual warfare. By the last of Oc- 
tober he had a well-drilled, well-organized, and well-equipped 



41-' 



ADVANCKl) AMi-.KlCAK lllSTOin' 



The 

Opposing 
Forces 
at the 
Com- 
mence- 
ment 
Of 
1862 



army of 150,000 men. As a reward for his ^crv■ices McClel- 
lan was made (November i, 1861) the commander of all the 
armies of the United States. People in the North thought 
McClellan ought to lead his magnificent army promptly against 
Richmond, but McClellan held his forces in check, and al- 
lowed the year (1861) to pass without any advance upon 
Richmond. 

Although there was but little fighting in 1861 the work of 
preparation during the year was very great on both sides. 
At the commencement of 1862 the organized forces of the 
Union army consisted of nearly 500,000 men and the Union 
navv numbered more than 200 armed vessels. Of the land 




Territory held by the Confederates at the close of 1861. 

forces, about 15,000 were at Fortress Monroe; about 200,000 
were stationed in the vicinity of Washington ; about 20,000 
were in western Virginia ; about 100,000 were at Louisville ; 
about 100,000 were at St. Louis, and at Cairo, Illinois ; about 
20,000 were on the extreme Western Frontier. The organized 
forces of the Confederate army at the commencement of 1862 
were not far from 250,000 men. Of these about 175,000 were 
in eastern Virginia; about 30,000 were in Kentucky at Co- 



THE CIVIL WAR 445 

lumbus, Fort Donelson, and Fort Henry ; about 20,000 were 
in Tennessee, at Nashville and Chattanooga ; and a consid- 
erable number were holding the Mississippi, being stationed 
at New Orleans, Natchez, Vicksburg, and Memphis. 

The year 1861 had been spent in preparation. When the ^*°°°^ 
year 1862 opened, Lincoln believed that the time had come aoenerai 
for action. On the 27th of January, as the commander-in- ment 
chief of the army and navy (92), he issued the following stir- Troops 
ring order : 

Ordered: That the 22 day of February 1862, be the day for a 
general movement of the land and naval forces of the United 
States against the insurgent forces. 
That especially 

The Army at and about Fortress Monroe, 
The Army of the Potomac [at Washington under McClellan], 
The Army of western Virginia, 

The Army near Mumfordsville [near Louisville] Kentucky, 
The Army and Flotilla ^ at Cairo, 
And a Naval Force in the Gulf of Mexico 
be ready for a movement on that day. 

That all other forces ... be ready to obey additional orders 
when duly given. 

That the Heads of Departments with all the subordinates and 
the General-in-Chief with all other commanders and subordinates 
of the land and naval forces will severally be held to their strict 
and full responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order." 

How were these great armies to be employed? What was The 
the plan of the campaign which was to be directed against cam- 
the South? During 1861 the Union troops had moved against 
the enemy in an irregular, haphazard fashion, but by the 
beginning of 1862 Lincoln and his advisers determined that 
the Union forces must undertake in a systematic manner 
the accomplishment of four things : ( i ) They must cap- 
ture Richmond; (2) they must keep the blockade effective 
so as not to let the South get any supplies from abroad; (3) 
they must gain possession of the Mississippi River so as to 

1 The flotilla consisted of river craft armed and equipped as gunboats. 



444 



ADVANCED AMKRTCAN HISTORY 



give the Western peo|)lc an outlet to the ocean, and at the 
same time cut the Confederacy into two parts; (4) they must 
press upon the Confederate Hues, driving them back further 
and further, until all the territory of the seceding States should 
be under the control of the federal power. 



Forts 

Henry 

and 

Donel- 

sou 



General 
Grant 



144. THE WAR IN THE WEST: 1862. 

The energetic movement of the armies in the West began 
even before the date assigned in Lincoln's order. In February. 
Commodore Foote with a flotilla of gunboats moved up the 
Tennessee River and captured Fort Flenry (February 6). 
Foote now returned with his gunboats to the Ohio and 
ascended the Cumberland to attack Fort Donelson by water, 
while General U. S. Grant was to attack it by land. The gun- 
boats were driven back, but Grant with an army of 30,000 
men pressed hard upon the fort and after three days of 
fighting compelled it to surrender (February 16), capturing 
about 15,000 Confederate soldiers. The capture of these two 
forts was an event of the greatest importance for it gave 
to the Union forces the control of two waterways which 

led far into the South, and it 
wrested from the Confederacy the 
whole of Kentucky and a large 
part of Tennessee. 

The man who achieved the vic- 
tory of Fort Donelson was at the 
time wholly unknown to the Amer- 
ican pco])le. Like most of the lead- 
ers in the Civil War, whether 
Union or Confederate, Grant had 
graduated at West Point and like 
many of them (p. 354) he had 
served in the Mexican War. 
After that war was over he served 
at various military posts until 1854, 
when he retired from the army and undertook to conduct 
a real estate business in St. Louis. Failing in this, in i860 




General Ulysses S. Grant. 



THE CIVIL WAR 445 

he took a clerkship in his father's leather business at Galena, 
Illinois, where he remained till the outbreak of the Civil War. 
Up to this time Grant's life in its outward aspects, at least, 
had been a failure; he had allowed his great faculties to fall 
into disuse and ambition seemed to have faded from his 
nature. But when Lincoln called for soldiers Grant was 
aroused to action. He drilled a body of volunteers and wrote 
to the Adjutant-General at Washington, offering his services 
to the Union army. But he was too obscure a personage to 
secure consideration ; he did not receive even a reply to his 
letter. Nevertheless, in June 1861, he was successful in 
securing an appointment as colonel of an Illinois regiment; 
in August he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers ; in 
September he was made commander of the Union forces in 
southeastern Missouri. He now moved upward from one 
position to another until he became the central figure of the 
war. Grant was short in stature, round-shouldered and 
not at all striking in personal appearance. " He has rough, 
light-brown whiskers," said an observer, " blue eyes and a 
rather scrubby look withal. . . . But his face is firm and hard 
and his eye is clear and resolute." Upon the field of battle 
Grant's physical courage was marvelous even in the opinion 
of the bravest. Throughout rattling musketry fire he would 
sit in his saddle without moving a muscle or winking an eye, 
quiet, thoughtful, imperturbable. His great qualities as a 
general were manifested in the directness of his movements 
and in the perseverance of his actions. He went straight 
against the enemy to crush him and he fought on and on, 
hammering away until the victory was complete. 

After the fall of Fort Donelson the Confederate troops shiioh 
moved south to Corinth, a railroad center in northern Missis- 
sippi. Here a large army was collected under the command 
of Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the ablest and bravest of the 
Southern generals. The Union army, after its success at Don- 
elson. was led by Grant up the Tennessee to Pittsburgh Land- 
ing near Shiloh Church, where Grant expected to be joined 
by Buell, who was moving south with the army that had 



446 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



been stationed at Louisville. But before Buell arrived John- 
ston suddenly attacked (April 6) the Union army and on the 
first day of the battle drove Grant from his position. About 
sundown, however, the advance forces of Buell oegan to arrive 
and during the night four divisions of his army reached the 
field. The next morning the battle was renewed and there 
was hard fighting on both sides, but after the arrival of 




The war in the West. 



Buell's army the Confederates were greatly outnumbered and 
were compelled to retire. On the first day of the battle 
Johnston was killed. He was succeeded by Beauregard, who 
led his forces back to Corinth. But he was unable to hold 
this position, for General Halleck, then commander of all 
the armies in the West, pressed upon Corinth (May 30) and 
compelled the Confederates to move farther south.^ 

1 After Shiloh it was several months before there was any more desperate fight- 
ing in the West between th.; land forces. In the fall, however, Kentucky was 
raided by the Confederate general, Bragg, who moved northward until he was met 



THE CIVIL WAR 



447 




Stonewall Jackson. 



While llic forces of Grant and Halleck were pushinor back opening 

' ^ of the 

the Confederate Hnes in the States of !\entuckv, Tennessee, Missis- 
sippi 
and Mississippi, other I'ninn 

forces were gaining control of 
the Mississippi River. On April 7, 
Foote with his gunboats and Gen- 
eral Pope with a land force took 
possession of Island Number 10. 
Two months later the Confederates 
abandoned Fort Pillow and Mem- 
phis, and this left the Union forces 
m control of the Upper Missis- 
sippi as far south as Vicksburg. 
In the meantime, Admiral Farra- 
gut was gaining control of the 
Lower Mississippi. In April, Far- 
ragut entered the mouth of the 
river with a great fleet, forced his way past Fort Jackson and 
Fort St. Philip, and captured New Orleans and Baton Rouge. 
The Union forces now had full control of the Mississippi, ex- 
cepting the stretch between Vicksburg and Port Hudson. 

145- THE WAR IN THE EAST: MARCH 1862-MAY 1863. 

While the Union forces in the West in 1862 met with many Mcciei- 
successes, in the East they met with many failures. The year prepares 
opened with McClellan still inactive. The Potomac River was Against 
blockaded by the Confederates, and the Confederate flag floated mond 
on a nill in sight of W^ashington. General Joseph E. Johnston 
was close by at Manassas with a force of 50,000. McClellan 
had 150,000 men ready for duty, but he would not move upon 
Manassas because he was informed that Johnston's force was 
superior to his own. At last, on January 31 Lincoln took mat- 
ters in hand and issued to McClellan a peremptory order to 
move against Johnston not later than February 22, the date 

by Buell near Perryville (October 8) and driven back into Tennessee. On the 
last day of the year Bragg, while in winter-quarters at Murfreesboro, was attacked 
by the Union general, Rosecrans. After a fierce struggle the Confederate troops 
withdrew from the field, although it would hardly be correct to say they were 
defeated. 



448 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

assigned for the general movement. But McClellan planned 
for a campaign that would not take him to Manassas: he de- 
sired to move down the Potomac, up the Rappahannock, across 
to the York River and thence to Richmond. To this plan 
Lincoln gave his consent. 

Just as McClellan was preparing to move, there occurred one 
The of the most interesting naval ^ events of the war. On March 

Ind tSr'' 8 the Confederate ironclad Merrimac suddenly moved out from 
m^-'"' Norfolk and attacked the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, sink- 
ing the wooden frigate Cumberland and capturing and destroy- 
ing the wooden frigate Congress. The next day the Merrimac 
went forth to renew its work of destruction but it was foiled 
by the Monitor, a low-decked, iron-clad vessel with a revolving 
turret carrying heavy guns. The Monitor had been sent down 
hurriedly from New York and upon her arrival in Hampton 
Roads she at once gave battle to the Confederate ram. The 
fight was now between two ironclads and it was a gallant 
struggle on both sides. Neither vessel won a decided victory 
but the Merrimac was prevented from doing further mischief 
to the Union navy.- 

1 Naval warfare.— Since the Confederacy had no navy worthy of the name, the 
naval operations of the Civil War were not of great importance. Nevertheless, 
the South managed to inflict great injury upon the commerce of the North. She 
purchased abroad a small fleet of armed cruisers and sent them roving about the 
seas to capture American merchant ships wherever found. The most famous of 
these commerce-destroyers was the Alabama, commanded by Raphael Semmes. 
This vessel was built in England and fitted out at British ports with the full 
knowledge of the English government, although not with its official sanction. 
She was manned by English sailors, but was commanded by Confederate officers. 
The Alabama, sailing from England in the summer of 1862, cruised in the 
Atlantic ocean for two years and captured sixty-six merchant vessels. In June 
1864, she was sunk off Cherbourg (France) by the American man-of-war Kear- 
sarge commanded by John A. Winslow. The Shenandoah was another famous 
comm'erce-destroyer. She was purchased in England and armed with guns deliv- 
ered to her by a British ship at a barren island near Madeira. She cruised^ in 
the Pacific and destroyed thirty-eight vessels before the end of the Civi. War. 
Our merchant marine, which was so flourishing in the fifties (p. 415). was almost 
swept from the seas by the commerce-destroyers of the Confederacy. 

After the war Great Britain was asked to pay damages for the injuries inflicted 
by the Alabama, and in 1871 a board of arbitration met at Geneva to settle the 
"Alabama Claims." The board made an award of $15,500,000. to be distributed 
among those whose ships and property had been destroyed. This finding of the 
board is known as the Geneva Award. 

-The events in Hampton Roads during these two days marked the beginning 
of a new era in naval architecture. The day of the wooden war-vessel was past 



THE CIVIL WAR 449 

On March 17, 1862 McClellan began his long delayed ad- Fair 
vance upon Richmond. He took his army by water to For- 
tress Monroe and from this place he marched his troops up the 
Peninsula which lies between the York and James Rivers. At 
Williamsburg he came up with the Confederates under Joseph 
E. Johnston and gave them battle, but at night Johnston slipped 
away. McClellan followed to Fair Oaks, where he was at- 
tacked (May 31) by the Confederates who on the first day of 




The " Merrimac " ramming the " Cumberland." 

the battle were successful but on the second day were defeated. 
In the battle Johnston was wounded and Robert E. Lee was General 
appointed in his place. At the outbreak of the war, Lee, like 
many of the Confederate officers, was in the service of the 
Union army. His talents were recognized in military circles 
and the chief command of the Union forces was practically 
offered to him. But he refused the offer. He did not favor 
the secession movement when it was in its incipient stages, for 
in January 1861 he declared that secession was nothing less 
than revolution. But a few months later when his native State 

and the day of the ironclad had come. " The oak-ribbed and white-winged navies, 
whose dominion had been so long and picturesque, at last and forever gave way 
to steel and steam." 



450 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Jackson 
in the 
Shenan- 
doah 
Valley 



The 
Seven 
Days' 
Battle 




Robert E. Lee. 



seceded he cast his lot with the Confederacy. " With all my 
devotion to the Union," he said, " and the feeling of loyalty 

and duty of an American citizen, I 
have not been able to make up my 
mind to raise my hand against my 
relatives, my children, my home." 
Lee ])roved to be a tower of 
strength to the Confederate cause. 
His talent for organization was 
equal to that of McClellan. He not 
only managed the Southern forces 
with consummate skill and ability 
but he won the confidence of the 
Southern people. " Inspired by 
his example," says Charles Francis 
Adams, '' the whole South seemed 
to lean up against him in im])licit, loving reliance." 

McClellan in his movements against Richmond expected to 
be assisted by McDowell who had an army of 40,000 men. 
But the movements of " Stonewall " Jackson in the Shenan- 
doah Valley prevented most of McDowell's men from joining 
with McClellan. Jackson, with 15,000 men, rushed down the 
Valley, cleared it of Union troops and marched his army so 
close to Washington that Lincoln thought it prudent to recall 
McDowell to protect the capital. 

Jackson, after his brilliant movements in the Valley, joined 
Lee in the defense of Richmond. On June 25 fighting be- 
tween the two armies began at Mcchanicsville and continued 
in the neighborhood of Richmond for seven days. In this long 
battle — the Seven Days' battle — the Confederates lost 10,000 
men, and the Union army 16,000. The victory — if there was 
a victory at all — was on the side of the Confederates, for they 
checked the advance of the Union army and thus saved their 
capital. On July 23 Halleck (p. 446) was appointed general- 
in-chief of all the armies of the United States and on August 
23 he ordered McClellan to withdraw the Union forces to the 
vicinity of Washington. McClellan protested, but in vain. The 



THE CIVIL WAR 



451 



army was withdrawn and the ill-starred Peninsular campaign 
was brought to an end. " Thousands upon thousands of the 
flower of American manhood had sickened and died in the 
malarial swamps of the Chickahominy and thousands more 
had watered with their blood the fields about Richmond, and 
all to no purpose." 

About the time McClellan was withdrawing from the Penin- Second 

° Battle 

sula, Lincoln placed Pope (p. 447) at the head of a newly of 

...... „ Manassas 

organized force known as the Army of Virgmia. Pope met 

(August 29-30) Lee on the old battle-field of Manassas and 




General McClellan passing the firing line, Sept. 17th, 1862. 

was defeated. At his own request he was removed from com- 
mand, and his army was added to the Army of the Potomac. 
After his victory at Manassas, Lee crossed the Potomac and 
marched into Maryland hoping to rally the people of that State 
to the Confederate cause. McClellan followed and a great 
battle was fought (September 17) at Antietam Creek. The Antietam 
losses on both sides were enormous, but the loss of the Confed- 
erates was heavier. Lee recrossed the Potomac, but McClellan 
failed to pursue him. Because he did not follow up his vic- 
tory he was removed and his command was given to Burnside. 
But it was an unfortunate change, for Burnside was a poor 



452 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Freder- 
icksburg 



Results 
of the 
Fight- 
ing in 
1862 



fighter. He attacked the Confederates under Lec^ (December 
13) at Fredericksburg and was defeated with terrible slaughter. 
Burnside was soon removed and General Hooker — " fighting 
Joe Hooker " — was appointed in his place. 

The battle of Fredericksburg marked the close of the fighting 
in 1862. What had been accomplished during the year? To 
what extent had the plan of campaign been carried out? The 
capture of Richmond had not been achieved ; the Confederate 
capital was as secure at the end of the year as it was at the be- 
ginning. The blockade, however, had been maintained with 
increasing effectiveness. Great progress, too, had been made 




Territory held by the Confederates at the close of 1862. 

in the task of opening the Mississippi, for the Union forces had 
gained possession of the river throughout its entire length, ex- 
cepting the stretch between Port Hudson and Vicksburg. In 
the matter of driving back the Confederate lines and gaining 
possession of the Confederate territory, the Union forces had 
been highly successful. At the opening of the year 1862 the 
Confederates occupied a portion of western Virginia, half of 
Kentucky, half of Missouri, and all the eleven States of the 
Confederacy. At the close of 1862, all western Virginia, all 



THE CIVIL WAR 453 

Missouri, all Kentucky, the greater part of Tennessee, half of 
Arkansas, and portions of Mississippi and Louisiana were in 
the possession of the Union forces. In the matter of fighting, 
of battles lost and won, the Union forces were for the most 
part successful in the West, while the Confederates were for 
the most part successful in the East. 

146. EMANCIPATION. 

On the first day of 1863 Lincoln issued a proclamation eman- The 
cipating all persons held as slaves within the Confederate lines, limi- 
This blow at the South was not given without warning. When Emanci 

. ... pation 

Lee was invading Maryland, Lmcoln " made a promise to hmi- Procia- 

° -^ I'll mation 

self and his Maker " that if the Confederates were driven back 
he would issue a proclamation of emancipation. Accordingly, 
five days after Lee was defeated at Antietam, Lincoln gave out 
(September 22) a preliminary proclamation which declared 
that on the first of January 1863 all " persons held as slaves 
within any State, or designated part of a State, the people 
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, 
shall be then, thenceforward and forever, free ; and the execu- 
tive government of the United States, including the military 
and naval authority thereof, shall recognize and maintain the 
freedom of such persons." 

Lincoln had no authority under the Constitution or under Lincoln's 
the law to emancipate a single slave and did not pretend to for 
have.^ He regarded the proclamation as a fit and necessary the 
war measure. " The slaves were working on the farms and tion 
raising the food for the Confederate soldiers ; they were 
serving as teamsters in the Confederate army ; they were 
helping to throw up entrenchments for the Confederate de- 
fense." As a movement in the game of war, therefore, Lin- 
coln determined to deprive the masters of their slaves. The 
blow was struck for the Union rather than for the slaves. 
" My paramount object in this struggle," he said, " is to save 
the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If 

1 In 1862 Lincoln tried to secure the emancipation of the slaves in the border 
-States by compensating the masters, but he failed in the undertaking. 



454 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Recep- 
tion 
of the 
Proclama- 
tion 
in the 
North 



The 
Final 
Proclama- 
tion 



The 
Eecep- 
tion 
of the 
Proclama- 
tion 
In the 
South 



I could save the Union without freeing any shive, I would do 
it; and if 1 could save it by freeing all the slaves, 1 would do 
it; and if 1 could save it by freeing some and leaving others 
alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the 
colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the 
Union.'' 

In the North the proclamation met with a rather luke-warm 
reception. " It [the preliminary proclamation] is six days 
old,"' said Lincoln on September 28, " and while the commenda- 
tion in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is all that 
a vain man could wish, the stocks have declined and troops 
come forward more slowly this year. This, looked soberly in 
the face, is not very satisfactory." The fall elections of 1862 
must have been peculiarly discouraging to Lincoln, for the 
Democrats made great gains and the Republicans were barely 
successful in retaining the control of the House. 

Yet Lincoln held firm to his purpose. When January i, 1863 
arrived the final proclamation was issued, for the Confederate 
States showed not the slightest sign of submission. After 
designating the States and parts of States in which the slaves 
were to be set free, the proclamation read : " And I hereby 
enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from 
all violence unless in necessary self-defense ; and I recommend 
to them that in all cases when allowed they labor faithfully 
for reasonable wages." The proclamation did not api)ly to the 
slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri, 
for they were still loyal to the Union. Nor did it apply to the 
western part of Virginia or to certain designated parts of the 
Confederacy which were under the control of Union troops. 
In the parts excepted slavery was to remain undisturbed just 
as if the proclamation had not been issued. 

In the South the proclamation gave force to the argument 
that Lincoln was the abolitionist that the South had always 
contended he was, and that the war was only a crusade against 
slavery. The proclamation created consternation in the 
South, but it did little to change the course of events there, 
unless it was to incite the people to a more strenuous resist- 



THE CIVIL WAR 



455 



ance. President Davis in a message to the Confederate Con- 
gress declared (January 12) that the proclamation " encour- 
aged slaves to a general assassination of their masters." But 
there was no uprising. On the contrary, the slaves continued 
to display the usual fidelity to their masters. The proclama- 
tion, however, did have the effect of making the slaves the 
friends of the North and at the close of 1863 Lincoln an- 
nounced in his annual message that about 50,000 former slaves 
-''ere fighting in the ranks of the Union army. 




Pickett's charge, at Gettysburg. 



45^> 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Chancel- 
lorsville 



Gettys- 
burg 



147. THE WAR IN 1863. 

At the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, a 
deep gloom overspread the North because of the awful dis- 
aster at Fredericksburg. But the gloom of the North was 
presently to become deeper. On May i, Hooker with a well- 
organized and well-disciplined army of about 100,000 men ad- 
vanced upon Lee and Jackson who were then at Chancellors- 
ville, Virginia, with 60,000 men. But through the tactics of 
the Confederate generals the Union forces were defeated even 




SUtute Milea 



The war in the East. 

more disastrously than they had been at Fredericksburg. 
When the news of Chancellorsville reached the North, discour- 
agement was written on every brow, for it seemed that the 
South would never be conquered. 

But it was not long before the hopes of the North began 
to revive. After his great victory at Chancellorsville, Lee 
again crossed the Potomac. This time he led his army through 
Maryland into Pennsylvania, advancing as far as Chambers- 
burg and Carlisle, and even shaking the houses of Harrisburg 



THE CIVIL WAR 457 

with the roar of his cannon. The Army of the Potomac, now 
under the Command of General Meade, was hurried north to 
check the Confederate advance. The two armies met near 
the town of Gettysburg on July i, and there followed the 
greatest battle of the Civil War. The fighting continued for 
three days and in the stubborn and bloody battle the Union 
army lost in killed and wounded and missing 23,000 out of 
93,500 men, while the Confederates lost 20,500 out of 70,000. 
Lee led his army back into Virginia where he remained un- 
disturbed until the spring of 1864. 

Coincident with the victory at Gettysburg came another vicka- 
great Union victory at Vicksburg. In the fall of 1862 General 
Grant set out to capture Vicksburg and by May 1863 had 
invested the city with fortifications and with a large army. 
For weeks he stormed the place with shot and shell, by day and 
by night. But the city would not surrender. *' When the 
last pound of beef, bacon, and flour," said General Pemberton 
who commanded the forces within the city, " the last grain of 
corn, the last cow and hog and horse and dog shall have been 
consumed, and the last man shall have perished in the trenches, 
then, and only then, will I sell Vicksburg." At last when 
food was gone and further resistance seemed useless, Vicks- 
burg surrendered and 30,000 Confederate soldiers were made 
prisoners of war. The surrender occurred July 4, only a day 
after the Confederates were turned back at Gettysburg. On 
July 9, Port Hudson fell and one of the great purposes of 
the Union plan of campaign was accomplished : the Mississippi 
was opened throughout its entire length. 

But there was another great highway of trade and travel to chatta- 

be opened. This extended southeast from Chattanooga, the 

chief railway center of the South, to Atlanta and thence 

to the sea. In September 1863, Chattanooga fell into the 

I hands of the Union forces,^ but it was quickly surrounded 

, by Confederate troops and the beleaguered Union army was 

1 On September 8 Bragg was driven from Chattanooga by General Rosecrans. 
Bragg took his position close by in Chickamauga, where there was fought (Sep- 
i!ember 21-22) a fierce battle which would doubtless have ended in the defeat of 



458 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Gran; 



Com- 
mand 



threatened with starvation. Before it was too late fresh 
forces arrived upon the scene and under the leadership of 
Grant the strategic position of Lookout Mountain was cap- 
tured. Chattanooga was relieved, and by the end of Novem- 
ber the Union power was firmly established in the city and in 
the region round about. Chattanooga now became a doorway 
through which Union troops from the West might pour into 
Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. 

Congress was so highly pleased by the victory at Chat- 
tanooga that it revived the military title of lieutenant-general 



1^ — 

_y^ ' -^^ ^ \J ^ '•' '^^' ' '-^'•^■' -^■->-- 

/ ^^V. I 1^ ] iNEBR. TER X"^- 'V* r^CMois'^ ;Cle^l»''*;v,]ttt'«^'";«: 

^^A / rep '--^OLo. I V:-- X---'/ cu>aouau^^,,^u>st« 

"'■^^ ! yT T^R. ' KANs. r^KJuj^t-a 

■ " <--. *^^^^>^^ INDIAN TERXAii*.HK. '/>!>" r' 

. .-' oaWeBtun ^ 



..\ 



Territory held by the Confederates at the close of 1863. 



— a title that had hitherto been held by only Washington and 
Scott — and empowered the President to raise to that rank 
the major-general who was most distinguished for courage, 
skill, and ability. Since it was plain that Congress intended 
this honor for the hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln 
called Grant to Washington and conferred upon him the title 
of lieutenant-general (March 1864) and placed him in com- 

the Union troops had not the day been saved by the bold stand of General Thomas, 
the " Rock of Chickaniauga." The result of the battle of Chickamauga was to 
leave the Union troops cooped up in Chattanooga. 



THE CIVIL WAR 459 

mand of all the armies of the United States. Grant's com- 
mand in the West was given to General William T. Sherman 
who was holding Chattanooga. 

The relief of Chattanooga was the last important event of Results 
the war in 1863. During the year success had for the most right- 
part been on the side of the Union armies. In the East little ises 
progress had been made in the way of pushing back the Con- 
federate lines. Eastern Virginia was still held by the Con- 
federates and Richmond was still uncaptured. In the Missis- 
sippi Valley the capture of Vicksburg and of Chattanooga 
had resulted in spreading the Union power over new stretches 
of the Confederate territory. By December 1863. Louisiana, 
Arkansas, and Tennessee had been brought under federal con- 
trol, and Lincoln was taking measures to restore these three 
States to their old time place in the Union. Indeed, the prog- 
ress of the Union cause in 1863 was so marked that men in 
the North quite generally believed that the power of the Con- 
federacy was broken. " The success of our arms," said the 
Secretary of War in December 1863, " during the last year 
has enabled the department to make a reduction of over $200,- 
000,000 in the war estimates for the ensuing fiscal year." 

148. THE CLOSE OF THE STRUGGLE. 

But there was much hard fighting after 1863. In 1864 the The 
Union forces began to move against the Confederates accord- Plan 
ing to a plan of cooperation between the armies of the East »am- 
and those of the West. The plans for this campaign of con- 
certed action were agreed upon by Grant and Sherman. Ac- 
cording to the final plan of campaign, Grant was to fight Lee 
in Virginia, while Sherman was to attack Johnston ^ at Dalton, 
conquer Georgia, and move northward with the purpose of 
joining the Union army in Virginia and assisting Grant in the 
capture of Richmond Both generals were to begin their 
movements on the same day, and both were to keep on fight- 
ing continuously, regardless of the season or weather. 

1 After Bragg was beaten at Chattanooga he retreated to Dalton in Georgia. 
He was soon removed and his command was given to Joseph E. Johnston. 



4^)0 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



From 
Chatta- 
nooga 
to At- 
lanta 



From 
Atlanta 
to the 
Bea 



On the appointed day (May 5, 1864), Sherman, going out 
from his headquarters in Chattanooga, began the most memo- 
rable march in the history of rhe war. He marched against 
Johnston at Dalton and drove him from his position. He 
then pushed on to Atlanta, Johnston stubbornly opposing his 
advance. Between Dalton and Atlanta the battles of Resaca, 
Dallas, Lost Mountain, and Kenesaw Mountain were fought. 
Before Atlanta was reached Johnston was relieved of his com- 
mand and General J. B. Hood was appointed in his place. Hood 
tried hard to check Sherman but failed. On September 2, 1864, 
Sherman took possession of Atlanta.^ The loss of this city was 
keenly felt by the Confederates, for it was a great railway 
center and it furnished to the Confederate armies supplies of 
ammunition and clothing. On Noveml^er 16, Sherman started 
with 60,000 men on his famous march from Atlanta to the 
sea. The army moved in four columns and in its path it laid 
waste a belt of country sixty miles wide. Nothing impeded 
Sherman's progress and on the 21st of December he entered 

the city of Savannah in triumph. 
He at once sent a letter to Lincoln 
sa3ing, ' I beg leave to present to 
you as a Christmas gift the city of 
Savannah." From Savannah, 
Sherman, in accordance with the 
plan of campaign, moved north- 
ward to join Grant in Virginia. By 
the last of March he had subdued 
the interior of South Carolina and 
had advanced far into North Caro- 
lina. With the exception of Vir- 
ginia, a part of North Carolina, 
and the coast line of South Caro- 
lina, the entire Confederacy was now in the control of the 
L'nion forces. 

1 After withdrawing from Atlanta, Hood marched toward Xashville, hoping 
that Sherman would follow. But since Thomas was at Nashville, Sherman did 
not follow. Hood attacked Thomas at Nashville, but his army suffered a dis- 
astrous rout. 




William T. Sherman. 



THE CIVIL WAR 



461 



In the meantime, Grant was in Virginia carrying out his Grant's 
part of the program. On May 4, 1864, with an army of 130,- paign 
000 men he set out to capture Richmond. He met Lee with Lee 
70,000 men in a forest known as the Wilderness, and fought a 




Territory held by the Confederates at the close of 1864, 

battle in which the loss of life on both sides was frightful. 
From the Wilderness, Grant pushed on to Spottsylvania Court- 
House, where he again fought the Confederates and where he 
lost many thousands of his men. But whether losing or win- 
ning Grant pressed on, his plan being to defeat Lee by in- 
cessant pounding. In this policy of persistence he was sup- 
ported by the President. " Hold on," said Lincoln in his 
quaint fashion in a despatch to Grant, " hold on with a bull dog 
grip, and chew and choke as much as possible." At Cold Har- 
bor Grant met the Confederates again and was beaten back 
with terrible slaughter. He now pushed on to Petersburg, the 
back door of Richmond. Here a long siege ^ was necessary. 

1 During the siege, Jubal Early with 20,000 Confederates moved dov/n the 
Shenandoah Valley, threatened Washington, and invaded Pennsylvania. Gen. 
Philip Sheridan was sent after Early with orders from Grant to " go in." Sheri- 
dan " went in " with a vengeance. He defeated Early and laid waste the beautiful 



462 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Collapse 
of the 
Confed- 
eracy 



Muster- 
ing 
Out 
of the 
Union 
Army 



The stronghold maintained its resistance for several months, 
but Grant drew his lines tighter and tighter and at last (April 
3, 1865) Petersburg fell and with it fell Richmond. Lee, after 
leaving the city he had defended so bravely for nearly four 
years, attempted to break through the Union lines, but he was 
checked at every step by a superior force and there was nothing 
for him to do but lay down his arms. On April 9, 1865, at 
Appomattox Court House, he surrendered to Grant his little 
army of 28,000 men. On April 26, Johnston surrendered to 
Sherman, near Raleigh, and the war was over. 

After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate government 
(juickly collapsed. President Davis with his cabinet and clerks 
went to Charlotte, North Carolina. Davis was determined to 
" die in the last ditch," but he could not hold out long. The 
surrender of Johnston made it necessary for the members of 
his cabinet to disband and flee. Davis made his way to 
Georgia but was captured at Irwinsville (May 10, 1865). He 
was sent to Fortress Monroe, in Virginia, where he was held 
a prisoner until 1867, when he was released on bail. 

At the close of the war there were about 1,000,000 men in 
the Union ranks and war expenses amounted to more than a 
billion dollars a year. Immediately after the surrender of 
Lee, however, the Union army began to be mustered out. and 
between May and November about 800,000 men changed from 
soldiers to citizens. " This change in condition," says Rhodes, 
" was made as if it were the most natural transformation in 
the world. These soldiers were merged into the peaceful 
life of the communities without interruption to industry, with- 
out disturbance of social and moral order." 



REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Plans and preparations: Ropes I, 161-257. 

2. Fort Donelson and Sliiloh : Ropes II, 3-96; Rhodes III, 585-600. 
621-627; Davis II, 24-36, 52-71. 



valley, the devastation being so complete that " a crow flying over the country 
would need to carry his provisions with him." 



THE CIVIL WAR 463 

3. Emancipation: Halsey VIII, 107-111; Rhodes IV, 17, 157-163; 
Davis II, 7-10, 169-187. 
4 Fredericksburg: Ropes II, 434-472; Rhodes IV, 184-200; Davis 

n, 352-356. 

5. Chancellorsville: Ropes III, 149-228; Rhodes IV, 261-266; Davis 

II, 357-365. 

6. Vicksburg: Hitchcock, 295-305; Rhodes IV, 299-317; Davis II 

392-417. 

7. Gettysburg: Ropes III, 402-499; Davis II, 440-450; Rhodes IV, 
282-293 ; Hitchcock, 306-328. 

8. Give an account of Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool address: 
Harding, 392-413. 

9. The downfall of the Confederacy: Davis II, 638-660; Hart IV, 
437-440; Rhodes V, 111-130; Hitchcock, 329-346. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865. 

11. Give a graphic account of the battle between the Monitor and the 
Merrimac. Describe a cavalry raid of " Jeb " Stuart. Name the three 
greatest Union generals; the three greatest Confederate generals. 
Characterize General R. E. Lee. Give an account of the arrest of Vai- 
landigham. Describe Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Read in the 
class Lincoln's Gettysburg address. What services did the colored 
troops render the North? Give a full account of Sherman's march to 
the sea; of Sheridan's ride. Were the devastations of these two move- 
ments justified? Give an account of Davis' flight from Richmond: 
Halsey VIII, 195-209. Read in the class Blaine's account of the dis- 
banding of the Northern army: Halsey VIII, 201-204. 

12. Special Reading. J. K. Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War. 
U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs. J. M. Callahan, Diplomatic History 
of the Southern Confederacy. John Fiske, Mississippi Valley in the 
Civil War. 



4fi4 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



IMPORTANT MOVEMENTS 



IN 



THE WAR OF SECESSION 



WEST 



EAST 



Border fighting in 
West Virginia, Kentucky 
and Missouri ® 



'61 



© 
© 

© 



Fort Sumter 
Bull Run 
Coast Battles 



Forts Henry and 

Donelson © 

Island No. 10 © 

Shiloh ® 

New Orleans © 

Corinth © 

Union side successful 
in the West 



'62 



© Peninsula Campaign 
© Jackson in the 
Shenandoah 
© Lee's First Invasion 
© Fredericksburg 



Confederate side successful 
in the East 



Vicksburg © 

Port Hudson © 

Mississippi River open 

Chickamaugd © 

Chattanooga © 

Central gateway open 



'63 



© Chancellorsville 
© Lee's Second Invasion 
and Gettysburg 



Union Side has the advantage 
both in the East and in the West 



Sherman's March 
from Chattanooga 



© 



'64 



Grant vs. Lee in 

© ® Wilderness Campaign 

( Desperate fighting 
Victories fortjoth sides) 



to Atlanta and Savannah I'n the East 
Nashville ® ® Sheridan in the 

Shenandoah 



® Union v/ciories 

(c) Confecferate v/ctorfoit 



'65 



Grant, ShermanThomas and 
Sheridan all converging to- 
ward Lee's Army andliichmond 
Surrender of the Confederate Armies 



XXXIX 

WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 

The last chapter was chiefly an account of the mihtary operation of 
the Civil War. This chapter will deal chiefly with the economic and 
political conditions which prevailed during the war. 

149. KEEPING THE RANKS TILLED. 

The cost of the war in blood was enormous. On the Union Tho 

Draft 

side more than 360,000 men were killed in battle or died from 
wounds and diseases The number of lives lost on the side of 
the Confederacy cannot be accurately stated, but it is likely 
that the South suffered as heavily as the North. Throughout 
the war a constant task of the authorities both in the North 
and in the South was to keep the ranks filled with good fight- 
ing men. At first, as we saw (p. 431), troops were raised in 
sutficient numbers by merely calling for volunteers. But as 
the war progressed it became more and more difficult to se- 
cure men in this way and it was found necessary to resort to 
the draft, that is, to draw by lot the names of a number of 
persons equal to the number of recruits required in a given lo- 
cality or district, and to compel the persons thus drafted to en- 
list whether willing or unwilling. Soldiers enrolled in this way 
were known as conscripts or drafted men. 

The South was the first to resort to the draft. In April praft- 
1862, the Confederate Congress passed a Conscription Act North 
which made all citizens between the ages of 18 and 35 liable south, 
to military duty. Later, all males between 18 and 45 were 
conscribed, and before the war closed almost the entire adult 
male population of the South could be legally called upon 
either to enlist in the army or to assist in raising supplies. " It 
was not long before the North also began the forcible enlist- 
ment of men. In March 1863, Congress passed a Conscrip- 

46s 



466 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Resist- 
ance 
to the 
Draft 



Bounties 



The 

Numbers 
In the 
Field 



tion Act which enrolled all citizens of the United States be- 
tween the ages of 20 and 45 and provided that where quotas 
could not be filled by voluntary enlistment the draft should be 
brought into use. 

The execution of the Conscription Act caused much excite- 
ment and in some places the draft was forcibly resisted. In 
New York City, when officers untlertook to enlist men by 
means of the draft, rioting began and for four days the city 
w^as at the mercy of a mob. The unpopularity of the draft 
was due largely to the provision in the law which allowed a 
man to escape service by paying $300 into the treasury of the 
government. This was regarded by many as a device by which 
the rich man could transfer his burden of military duty to the 
back of the poor man. The Confederacy also had a system of 
enrollment which allowed substitutes, and it was estimated that 
in the South at least 50,000 men who would have made good 
soldiers purchased substitutes and stayed at home. 

The poor man was encouraged to enlist by a pecuniary in- 
ducement in the form of a bounty. For example, at one 
time (February, 1864) in New York county in the State of 
New York the county offered a bounty in cash of $300 and 
the State a bounty of $75. The United States at the same time 
offered a bounty of $302. This amounted in all to a bounty 
of $677 which was paid to the recruit at the beginning of his 
service. Besides the bounty a soldier in the ranks received 
$16 a month with clothing and rations. The bounty system 
brought into existence the crime known as " bounty-jumping." 
Dishonest men would enlist for the sake of the bounty, then 
desert, change their names and go to another place where they 
would enlist again and receive another bounty. One man was 
reported as having jumped his bounty 32 times, thereby se- 
curing for himself a small fortune. 

Yet in spite of draft evasions, bounty-jumping, and deser- 
tions, the ranks were not only kept full but the armies of the 
North, and those of the South as well, continued to grow until 
they reached immense proportions. On January i, 1863, the 
Union army contained over 900,000 men and the Confederate 



WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 



467 



army nearly 700,000 men. When the war closed, the Union 
army numbered over 1,000,000 men. These figures when 
compared with those showing the total military population 
(p. 433) indicate in the clearest manner that each of the war- 
ring sections was in the fullest sympathy with the cause for 
which it fought. 

150. MEETING THE EXPENSES OF THE WAR. 

The great armies of the Civil War required vast sums for The 

their support. The cost of the war in money has been esti- of the 

mated by Edward Atkinson at the tremendous sum of $8,000,- 

000,000, the cost to the Union according to this estimate being 

$5,000,000,000 and the cost to the South being $3,000,000,000.^ 

The South was unable to raise the funds required to meet War 

^ Finances 



the expenses of the war. 



It had relied upon its cotton to of the 

' South 




Confederate Money. 

bring the necessary money, but after the blockade became 
effective the cotton was a valueless thing, for it could be neither 
manufactured nor sold. So the South had to get along as best 
it could without the cotton. It levied a general tax on all 
property in the Confederacy, but the total Confederate revenue 
raised by taxation during the four years of warfare was prob- 
ably equivalent to not more than $100,000,000. The South 
also attempted borrowing. Bonds of the Confederate gov- 



1 This includes the loss to the masters caused by the emancipation of the 
slaves, who were valued at something like $2,000,000,000. 



468 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



War 

Finances 
of the 
Federal 
Govern- 
ment 



ernment were sold at home and in Europe, but the money 
raised by borrowing was insignificant. The chief reliance of 
the South was upon issues of paper money. By 1S63, $200.- 
000,000 of paper currency was in circulation in the Con- 
federacy and before the war closed a billion dollars or more 
of this kind of money was afloat. For a short time this paper 
money circulated at its face value but it soon began to depre- 
ciate. In July 1863, a gold dollar would exchange for nine 
dollars in Confederate money ; in July 1864, it would ex- 
change for twenty dollars; and in March 1865, it would ex- 
change for sixty-one dollars. In the very last days of the 
war the Confederate paper money was worthless and the Con- 
federate treasury was bankrupt. 

In meeting the expenses of the Union armies the federal 
government adopted practically the same means as were re- 
sorted to by the Confederacy : it levied unusual taxes, it bor- 
rowed by issuing bonds and it put into circulation large 
amounts of paper money. In the four years of the war Con- 
gress raised by taxation $667,000.000 ; it borrowed more than 
$2,000,000,000 and issued more than $450,000,000 in paper 
money (greenbacks). In July 1862, Congress ])assed an 
internal revenue act which imposed a tax upon practi- 
cally " every article which enters into the mouth or covers 
the back or is placed under the foot ; upon everything 
which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste ; upon 
warmth, light, and locomotion; upon the sauces which 
pamper man's appetite and the drug that restores him to 
health ; upon the poor man's salt and the rich man's spice." 
At the same time a tax of three ])er cent, on incomes less than 
$10,000 and of five per cent, on incomes over $10,000 was im- 
posed. In 1862 the duties on imports ^ w^ere materially in- 
creased, and in 1864 they were raised still higher, the increase 
being made in order to compensate for the tax laid upon do- 



1 In the closing days of Buchanan's administration the Morrill Tariff Bill was 
passed. The law increased the duties on certain imports and was regarded as a 
protective measure. It was not a war tariff, however, for the war had not yet 
beg^n. 



WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 469 

mestic manufactures by the internal revenue act. But taxa- 
tion had to be supplemented by issuing bonds — that is, by 
borrowing. In 1861 Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
sold bonds to the amount of nearly $200,000,000. The sale of 
these bonds was managed by the banks of New York, Phila- 
delphia, and Boston, but the people were given an oppor- 
tunity to purchase the bonds, and large numbers of patriotic 
citizens lent a helping hand to the government by pur- 
chasing them. But by the time the war was well ad- 
vanced the expenses of the Union army were $2,000,000 a 
day, and taxation and borrowing put together failed to 
yield the necessary funds. So, Congress early began to issue 
paper money. In February, 1862, it passed a Legal Tender Act Paper 
authorizing the issue of $150,000,000 in notes which had to be 
accepted when offered in payment of debts. These notes were 
paper currency pure and simple. They were officially called 
United States notes, but they became known popularly as 
greenbacks. Other issues of greenbacks were made as the 
war proceeded. The greenbacks soon fell below par, their 
value fluctuating with the fortunes of war. Generally a dol- 
lar in greenback money was worth from sixty to eighty cents 
in gold, although in the summer of 1864 the depreciation of the 
greenbacks was so great that a dollar of this paper money was 
worth only about forty cents in gold. The heavy taxes and the 
borrowing and the depreciated paper currency produced severe 
financial pressure but the Government managed to bear the 
strain and meet the expenses of the war. It emerged from 
the contest, however, with a national debt of $3,000,000,- 
000.^ 

1 National banks. — One of the great financial measures of the war was the 
establishment of National Banks. When the war broke out the only money in 
circulation was gold and silver coin and the notes which were issued by the State 
banks (p. 322). The notes of the State banks were often almost worthless. So, in 
order to drive them out of circulation and to establish a sound national currency 
Congress in 1863 created a system of National Banks. The law of 1863 allowed 
banks to organize under a federal charter and buy United States bonds and de- 
posit them in the United States treasury, these to be held as a security for the bank 
notes which might be issued up to 80% of the par value of the bonds. At first 
national banks were organized under the federal law but slowly. Accordingly, 
Congress in 1865 gave still further encouragement to the national banks by lav- 



470 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Industry 
in the 
North 



Labor- 
saving 
Machin- 
ery 



The 
Home- 
stead 
Act 



Immi- 
grants 



151. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE IN WAR TIMES. 

By 1861 the country had recovered from the panic of 1857 
(p. 414) and was on the threshold of a new period of good 
times. In the North and West industrial and commercial 
conditions were so favorable that even the war did not check 
the rising tide of prosperity. Indeed the war acted as a stimu- 
lus to industry in the North and West, for the clothing of the 
millions of soldiers and the vast quantities of the munitions of 
war had to be manufactured in northern shops and the pro- 
visions of the army had to be raised on western fields. More- 
over in the early sixties the harvest of several of the coun- 
tries of Europe were failures and there arose a tremendous de- 
mand from abroad for American grain. 

But how were these demands to be met when hundreds of 
thousands of workmen in the North and West were leaving 
the shops and fields for the war? For one thing invention 
came to the rescue and gave to the industrial world many new 
kinds of labor-saving machinery. Especially did the improve- 
ments which were made in agricultural machinery assist in 
doing the work of the farm. " The reaper," said Stanton, 
" releases our young men to do battle for the Union and at the 
same time keeps up the supply of the nation's bread." Con- 
gress also came to the rescue with favorable legislation. In 
1862 it passed the Homestead Act, the most liberal of all our 
land laws. This law threw open to settlement millions upon 
millions of acres of the public domain and gave to the actual 
settler for a nominal fee a farm of 80 or 160 acres free of cost. 
The Homestead Act encouraged immigration. During the war 
more than 800,000 immigrants from Europe, most of them 
from Germany and Ireland, came to our shores and thousands 
of these newcomers took advantage of the Homestead Act and 
secured for themselves little farms in the West — in Iowa, in 
Minnesota, in Nebraska, in Kansas. 



ing a tax of 10% on the circulation of the State banks. This had the desired 
effect; the State banks, finding it unprofitable to pay the tax, redeemed and can- 
celled their outstanding notes and ceased to issue new ones. A monopoly of 
issuing notes was thus secured to the national banks. 



WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 471 

Thanks to labor-saving machinery, to immigration, and to the Agricui- 
fostering care of Congress, the fields were tilled during the 
war and the factories were kept running. Agriculture, owing 
to the unusual demands and to fortunate crops, fared excep- 
tionally well during the war. Before the war we exported 
about 20,000,000 bushels of wheat annually ; in the second 
year of the war we exported 60,000,000 bushels. The only 
leading industry that suffered greatly during the war was the 
manufacture of cotton goods. The iron industry, responding iron 
to the demand for guns, cannon, and other munitions of war, 
flourished as never before, the production of pig iron increasing 
from 300,000 tons in i860 to 1,000,000 tons in 1864. The shoe shoes 
industry also made great strides, the progress being due largely 
to the invention of the McKay sewing-machine which could 
be operated by one man and could sew the uppers to the soles 
a hundred times faster than they could be sewed by a pair of 
human hands. The following picture of war-time industry a 
has been given us. " Look over these prairies," said a speaker of 
in Illinois in 1864, " and observe everywhere the life and activ- industry 
ity prevailing. See the railroads pressed beyond their capacity 
with the freight; the metropolis of the State (Chicago) rear- 
ing its stately buildings with a rapidity almost fabulous ; every » 
smaller city, town, village, and hamlet within our borders all 
astir with improvement ; every factory, mill, and machine shop 
running with its full complement of hands ; the hum of in- 
dustry in every household ; more acres of fertile land under 
cultivation, fuller granaries, and more prolific crops than ever 
before." 

But it was not thus in the South. Here the trade in cotton industry 
was almost completely destroyed and as a result the whole south 
industrial system was paralyzed. The war, however, had the 
effect of stimulating the manufacture of iron in the South, 
especially the manufacture of guns and cannon. It also had 
the effect of giving the South a more diversified agriculture. 
Before the war cotton was the only important crop (p. 23^)' 
During the war, however, when food-stuffs could not be se- 
cured from the outside, it became necessary to decrease the 



472 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Blockade- 
Running 



Over- 
land 
Trade 
Between 
North 
and 
South 



acreage of cotton and increase the acreage of grain and 
wheat. 

A chief commercial activity in the Soutli (Uning the war 
consisted in l)lockade-rnnning. The articles brought into the 
South by running the blockade were arms, blankets, shoes, tea, 
soaps, linen, wool and silk, and, above all, medicines. The 
commodity taken out was cotton reduced by powerful presses 
to the smallest possible bulk. " For blockade-running vessels of 
a peculiar pattern were built, the typical one being a low, long, 
narrow, swift side-wheel steamer of four to six hundred tons. 
The hull was painted a dull gray or lead color which rendered 
the vessel invisible unless at short range, even in daylight. . . . 
When near the blockading squadron, all lights were put out and 
the steamer made her way forward in utter darkness. No 
noise was permitted ; necessary orders were given in muffled 
voices ; steam was blown off under water." The danger of 
running the blockade was great, but the profits w^ere enormous. 
One vessel made eight successful round trips and when she was 
captured on her ninth trip she had brought to her owners 
profits amounting to nine times her cost. 

Besides the trade which was carried on by blockade-running 
there was also a brisk overland trade between the North and 
the South. The mill-owners of the North wanted cotton and 
were willing to pay exorbitant prices for it. The Northern 
generals in the field were opposed to the trading in cotton for 
they saw that it was a greater disadvantage to the North than 
it was to the South. Still the government at Washington 
offered but a feeble resistance to the traffic. It was not until 
1864 that Congress took the matter in hand and placed the 
proper restriction upon the trade. Before this was done, how- 
ever, the South had succeeded in selling more cotton to the 
North by the overland routes than it had sold to Great Britain 
by running the blockade. While the trade yielded enormous 
profits it nevertheless gave rise to scandal and to charges of 
corruption that must have made the cheeks of some men high 
in authority tingle with shame. It was declared on the floor 
of the Senate that in some quarters the object of the armies 



WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 473 

seemed to l)e rather to procure the cotton of the South than 
to strike down the enemy, and that the trade on the Mississippi 
River had debauched tlie federal treasury agents and the 
officers of the ariry and navy. 

152. WAR TIME POLITICS. 

Davis 

PoHtics during: the war revolved around the great conflict as an 

. ° . . Execu- 

that was waging. How was the war progressing? Was it tive 
being managed well or ill ? Would the North lose or win ? 
In the South the management of the war rested upon the 
shoulders of Davis. In the discharge of his duties as Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy and commander-in-chief of the Con- 
federate armies Davis displayed great ability and skill, but his 
actions were sometimes so arbitrary that he brought upon him- 
self the charge of being a tyrant. Still upon the whole the 
administration of Davis met with the approval of the South- 
ern people and they gave to him an almost undivided loyalty 
and support. ^^^^^^ 

Lincoln did not receive the undivided loyalty and support of °pp°^^' 
the North. Throughout the war he was obstructed in his war *°*'*6 
measures in Congress, and outside by peace Democrats — Cop- 
perheads they were called — who did not believe that the 
South could be conquered and who were for peace at almost 
any price. In January 1863, C. L. Vallandigham, a member of 
the House of Representatives from Ohio, exclaimed, " You 
have not conquered the South ; you never will. The war for 
the Union is a most bloody and costly failure. . . . But ought 
this war to continue ? I answer, no ! ■ — not a day, not an hour." 
But Lincoln knew very well that the price that would be de- 
manded for peace was the acknowledgment of the independ- 
ence of the Confederacy. " The war must go on," said Davis 
in 1864, " till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks 
and his children seize his musket and fight our battles, unless 
you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not 
fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence." 
And Lincoln did not believe that the people of the North were 



474 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

willing to sacrifice the Union for the sake of peace. So he 

went on with the war. 

The Re- Lincoln, like Davis, sometimes under the pressure of what 

of seemed to him to be necessity, exceeded his Constitutional au- 

Iiincoln . . . , , , 

thonty. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed 

men to be arrested and imprisoned in a manner that was not 
in strict accordance with the letter of the law. This arbitrary 
conduct made him many enemies. Moreover, there was all 
along great dissatisfaction with his management of the war. 
Nevertheless, when the time came for electing a President in 
1864 Lincoln was nominated for reelection by the National 
Union Convention — another name for the regular Republi- 
can National Convention — while Andrew Johnson of Ten- 
nessee was nominated for Vice-President. The platform upon 
which Lincoln went before the people declared for the prose- 
cution of the war to the bitter end, and for an amendment to 
the Constitution that should prohibit slavery within the bounds 
of the United States. The Democrats nominated General 
McClellan, declaring the war a failure and demanding a ces- 
sation of hostilities. For a time the reelection of Lincoln was 
in doubt. In August, Lincoln himself wrote : " For some 
days past it seems exceedingly probable that the Administra- 
tion will not be reelected." But some victories for the Union 
armies caused the political skies to brighten. When the elec- 
tion took place Lincoln received 212 electoral votes, while 
McClellan received but 21. Lincoln had not misunderstood 
his people ; they wished to finish what they had begun. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The Sanitary Commission: Hart IV, 270-273; Rhodes V, 244- 

259- 

2. Conscription, North and Soutli : Hart IV, 256-259; Rhodes IV, 
165, 322-325, also V, 230, 235, 431-437- 

3. The draft riot in New York: Hart IV, 376-381. 

4. Taxation during the war : Dewey, 298-330. 

5. The finances of the Confederacy: Rhodes HI, 294, 543; V, 242, 
509-510; Dewey, 271-207; Davis I, 485-492. 



WAR TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH 475 

6. Social conditions, North and South: Rhodes I, 354-359; HI, 66- 
82, 84-96; V, 209-221, 421-431. 

7. Supplies of the Confederacy: Hart IV, 319-323- 

8. When money was easy: Hart IV, 247-256; Rhodes III, 566-573; 
V, 344-346; Coman, 280-285. 

9. Home life in the South during the war : Hart IV, 244-247. 

10. Name some of the men in your community who fought in the 
Civil War. Give an account of the Hampton Roads Conference. To 
what extent were there desertions from the Union army? from the 
Confederate army? Describe life in a military prison during the Civil 
War. Give an account of the postal service in the South during the 
war. What effect did the war have upon our mercantile marine? Give 
a detailed statement of the cost of the war. Relate the experiences of 
a typical blockade-runner. 

11. Special Reading. E. D. Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in 
the North During the War. J. C. Schwab, The South During the War, 



XL 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 

When Lincoln entered upon his second term, the task that lay be- 
fore him was almost as formidable as the one that confronted him in 
1861. How were the wounds made by the war to be healed? How 
were the unfinished problems connected with slavery to be solved? 
How were the seceding States to be treated? How were the political 
conditions that prevailed before the war to be restored? 



Lincoln's 
Condi- 
tions of 
Peace 



His 
Plan of 
Becon- 
ritructiou 



153. LINCOLN'S POLICY OF RECONSTRUCTION; HIS 
ASSASSINATION. 

The day after Richmond fell (April 3, 1865), Lincoln visited 
the Confederate capital in person and while there he made it 
known that he would insist upon three indispensable conditions 
to peace: (i) The national authority must be restored 
throughout the Southern States; (2) the emancipation of the 
slaves must be accepted as an accomplished fact; (3) all forces 
hostile to the national government must be disarmed. Here, 
in a nutshell, was Lincoln's policy of reconstruction. All the 
South had to do was to obey the federal laws, accept the aboli- 
tion of slavery, and lay down its arms. When the question 
arose as to how the seceding States were to be dealt with, 
Lincoln chose to waive the question of secession entirely, con- 
sidering it " a pernicious abstraction." " We all agree," he 
said in his last public utterance, " that the seceding States, so- 
called, are out of their proper practical relation with the 
Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and 
military, in regard to those States, is to get them again into 
that proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only 
possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even 
considering whether these States have ever been out of the 
Union. Finding themselves safely at home it would be utterly 

476 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 



477 



immaterial whether they had ever been abroad." The work of 
reconstruction, Lincohi thought, could be done better by the 
President than by Congress. " 1 think it providential," he said 
at his last Cabinet meeting, " that this great rebellion is crushed 
just as Congress has adjourned and there are none of the dis- 
turbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If 
we are wise and discreet we shrdl reanimate the States and get 
their governments in successful operation, with order prevail- 




Abraham Lincoln entering Richmond at the close of the War. 

ing and the Union reestablished, before Congress comes to- 
gether in December." The policy which Lincoln intended to 
pursue was liberal, mild, and tolerant. " I hope," he said, 
" there will be no persecution, no bloody work after the war 
is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging 
or killing these men [the Confederate leaders], even the worst 
of them. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must ex- 
tinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and Union." 

Hut Lincoln did not live to carry out the wise policy which The 

was so clearly foreshadowed by the above noble words. On tionof 
^ ' , ,.,...,., . Lincoln 

April 14, 1865, the great man, while sitting m his box in a 



478 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



theater in Washington, was shot in the head by John Wilkes 
Booth, an actor who in his sympathy for the South became 
mentally unbalanced because the South had failed to win. 
Lincoln fell forward unconscious when he was shot and never 
regained consciousness. He sank rapidly and on the morning 
of April 15 he died. Three hours after Lincoln's death Vice- 
President Johnson was sworn in as President. 



Amnesty 

and 

Pardon 



Excep- 
tions 



154. JOH'NSON'S EFFORTS IN THE WORK OF RECON- 
STRUCTION. 

Johnson took up the work of reconstruction at the precise 
point where Lincoln left it and in the performance of the task 
he followed closely the plans marked out by his predecessor. 
He reestablished federal authority within the limits of the 
several southern States ; he caused the post-office service to 
be renewed ; he caused the federal taxes to be collected ; he 
opened the federal courts for the administration of justice ; he 

rescinded the blockade and threw 
open the ports of the South to the 
trade of the world. On May 29, 
1865, Johnson issued a proclamation 
granting to all who had been in arms 
against the Union " amnesty and par- 
don with restoration of all rights of 
property except as to slaves," pro- 
viding that those desiring pardon 
would take oath that they would 
henceforth support and defend the 
Constitution of the United States 
and abide by all laws and proclama- 
tions with reference to the emancipation of slaves. The am- 
nesty, however, did not apply to certain excepted classes of 
persons, the most important exceptions being civil or diplo- 
matic officers of the Confederacy ; military officers above the 
rank of colonel ; those who had left seats in Congress to aid 
the South in its war; and all who owned property worth more 
than $20,000. But even these excepted persons might receive 




Andrew Johnson. 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 479 

pardon upon special application to the President. Speaking 
broadly, Johnson placed pardon within easy reach of all who 
had joined the Confederacy. 

In the meantime the machinery of government was moving The 

... .. ,, Thir- 

swiftly to brmg about the constitutional emancipation of the teenth 
slave. Even before the war had ended, Congress, in accord- ment 
ance with the wishes of Lincoln, submitted (March 1865) to 
the States, for ratification, the Thirteenth Amendment, pro- 
viding for the complete abolition of slavery throughout the en- 
tire extent of the United States (149). The amendment was 
quickly ratified by three- fourths of the States (123) and in 
December 1865 it became valid as a part of the Constitution. 
By the time the federal amendment was adopted slavery was 
practically dead, for it had already been abolished by State 
action in all the States but three. Nevertheless, it was the 
Thirteenth Amendment that gave the moribund institution its 
death blow and made freedom henceforth the portion of every 
person whose feet should rest upon American soil. 

While the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment was be- John- 
ing secured, President Johnson was undertaking to bring the condi- 

seceded States back into "their proper practical relation" in of Recon- 
struction 
the constitutional system. He proposed to reorganize as 

a member of the Union any State that would (i) nullify its 
ordinance of secession; (2) ratify the Thirteenth Amendment; 
and (3) agree not to pay the war debts contracted by the Con- 
federate government. These conditions were quite readily 
complied with and by the time Congress met in December, 
1865, Johnson was able to inform that body that " all the 
States except Texas had been reconstructed and were ready 
to resume their places in the two branches of the National 
Legislature." 

155- THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

But reconstruction was not to be achieved so easily and so Oppoei- 

•^ tion of 

quickly as Johnson hoped. Upon what basis were the States Congress 
to resume their places in Congress? This was a question that Joi^p- 
that body itself would have to settle (26). The Republican- ^ia° 



48o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



leaders in Congress were unwilling that the seceded States 
when readmitted should have a representation in the lower 
House based upon the combined population of both whites and 
blacks, for under the Constitution as it then stood (153j the 
emancipated slaves would be counted when making an appor- 
tionment of Representatives. The old arrangement of count- 
ing three-fifths of the slaves (8) was always regarded by many 
in (he North as unjust ; but how much more unjust, the Repub- 
licans in 1865 asked, would it be to count all the blacks? The 
radical Republicans believed that the emancipated negroes ought 
not to be counted for purposes of representation unless they 
were given the right to vote. Until this ail-important ques- 
tion was settled no scheme 
of reconstruction would be 
satisfactory to the Republi- 
can majority in Congress. 
So the radical element in 
Congress refused to join 
w'th Johnson in his plans 
for dealing with the seceded 
States. The leader of the 
(tp])osition to the President 
was Thaddeus Stevens, a 
member of the House from 
I'ennsylvania. Stevens was 
now a venerable man of 
seventy- four, I'jut the fires 
of his strong nature still 
burned with a fierce heat. 

He was a violent partisan 

riiadcleus Stevens. 11 ,1 . 1 • 1 

and he went about his work 

m a bitter and vindictive manner. " Speech with Stevens," 

said Charles Sumner, his friend and chief ally, " was at 

times a cat-of-nine tails, and woe to the victim on whom 

the terrible lash descended ! " l^^or nearly two years this 

iron-willed, imperious old man was the virtual dictator 

of the Rej^ublican party. , Yielding to his protest Con- 




THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 481 

gress instead of admitting the Senators and Representatives 
from the South, as Johnson proposed, denied them (26) their 
seats, and created a joint committee — the famous " reconstruc- 
tion committee " — with authority to inquire into Southern af- 
fairs and report whether any of the States of the Confederacy 
were entitled to be represented in either house of Congress. 

One reason why Congress halted in carrying out Johnson's The 
program was that although the Thirteenth Amendment had Codes" 
been accepted in the South, the negro was nevertheless not 
being treated in all respects as if he were a free man. He 
was virtually forbidden to assemble with other negroes, his 
freedom of locomotion was restricted, and in some places he 
was deprived of the means of self-defense. In Mississippi 
the f reedman was not allowed to own land ; in Louisiana in 
one place every negro was required to be in the regular service 
of some white person or former owner ; in South Carolina 
persons of color were forbidden to engage in any occupation ex- 
cept farming or domestic service, unless under a special li- 
cense. These " black codes," as the laws aimed especially at the 
negro w^ere called, were regarded by the whites of the South as 
necessary to prevent vagrancy and disorder and to protect so- 
ciety generally. The freedmen, it was claimed, were not, and 
in the nature of things, could not be, on the same social and in- 
tellectual level with the white man and they could not therefore 
I be made equal with the white man before the law. 

But Congress was opposed to the " black codes " and was dis- The 
posed to treat the negroes as if they were the equals of the malf-s" 
whites. From the beginning Congress undertook to shield 
the freedman from the hardships of his new condition. As 
early as March 1865 it established a Freedman's Bureau 
which was to look after the interests of former slaves, protect 
them from injustice and assume a general guardianship over 
them. This bureau was to continue in existence for only one 
year after the termination of the war, but in January 1866, 
Congress passed a bill establishing the bureau for an in- 
definite period and increasing its powers. The purpose of 
the new bill was to use the federal military power to pro- 



Bureau 



482 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tect the freedman against the discriminations of State legis- 
latures. Johnson vetoed the bill and his veto was sustained. 
Nevertheless, a few months later a bill continuing the Freed- 
man's Bureau for two years was passed over the President's 
veto. 
The Congress was insistent in its efforts to protect the freed- 

Kights man against the provisions of the " black code." In March 
1866, it passed the Civil Rights Bill, the purpose of which was 
to place the white man and the negro on an equal footing 
in the enjoyment of civil rights. "All persons," ran this 
law, "born in the United States and not subject to any 
foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby de- 
clared to be citizens of the United States ; and such citizens 
of every race and color, without regard to any previous condi- 
tion of slavery or involuntary servitude except as a punishment 
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, 
shall have the same right in every State and Territory of the 
United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, 
and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and 
convey real and personal property, and to the full and equal 
benefits of all laws and proceedings for the security of person 
and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall 
be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to 
none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, 
to the contrary, notwithstanding." The Civil Rights Bill was 
also vetoed by Johnson but Congress passed it over the Pres- 
ident's head (May 1866). ^ 
The In June 1866, Congress proposed to the States, for their 

teenth ratification, the Fourteenth Amendment. The purpose of the 
ment amendment was simply to embody the principles of the Civil 

Rights Bill in a permanent form in the fundamental law. In 
addition to defining who were citizens of the United States 
and declaring the civil rights of such citizens, the amendment 

1 Another Civil Rights Bill passed in 1871 provided that blacks should not be 
distinguished from whites by hotel-keepers, teachers, or officers of schools, theater 
managers, railroads, steamboats, etc., but this law was declared by the Supreme 
Court to be unconstitutional. 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 483 

provided a reduction of the Congressional representation of 
any State that should withhold the franchise from any adult 
male citizens (154) ; it excluded from federal office many 
])rominent Confederate officers until Congress should pardon 
them (155) ; and it invalidated all debts incurred in aid 
of insurrection or rebellion against the United States. The 
amendment was opposed bitterly by the South and by Feb- 
ruary 1867, it was voted down by every one of the seceding 
States except Tennessee, which accepted it. By July 1868, 
however, the amendment had been ratified by three-fourths 
of the States, and it was accordingly promulgated as part pf 
the Constitution. *~ ■ 

About the time the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed. Jhe 

^ ^ ' Kecon- 

the reconstruction committee presented a report upon con- struction 

^ ^ \ Program 

ditions in the South and upon the strength of this report of 

. Congress 

Congress enacted a law (March 2, 1867) which marked out 
the process by which the unreconstructed States were to be 
reconstructed. The program was as follows : 

(i). The ten ^ Southern States were to be grouped in five 
military districts which were to be put under the command 
of generals of the federal army. 

(2). These military commanders were to register in each 
State all the adult male citizens, black as well as white — but 
excluding such as might be disfranchised by the Fourteenth 
Amendment — and were to hold an election for delegates to 
a State convention. 

(3). These conventions were to frame constitutions, an in- 
dispensable condition of the constitution being that the fran- 
chise be extended to the blacks as well as to the whites. 

(4). The constitutions thus framed were to be submitted 
to the voters (blacks as well as whites) for adoption or re- 
jection. 

(5). If adopted by the State the constitution was to be 
^ sent to Congress for its approval. 

1 Tennessee, having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, was admitted to 
representation in Congress in July 1866. 



484 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



(6), If the constitution was approved the State was to be 
represented again in Congress as soon as the legislature of 
the State ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. 

(7). Until these conditions had all been complied with the 
State should be governed by the military governors and should 
in all things be subject to the paramount authority of the 
United States. 



Seven 
States 
Recon- 
structed 



Inasmuch as the Reconstruction Act disfranchised most of 
the natural leaders of the South, the effect of the law was 
to take authority from the intelligent and place it in the hands 
of the ignorant. In many of the States the freedmen out- 
numbered the whites and in the process of reorganization 
the government fell under the control of negroes led by un- 
scrupulous adventurers — '' carpet-baggers " they were called 
— from the North and the West. Nevertheless, the work of 
framing and ratifying the constitutions in accordance with the 
wishes of Congress was pushed forward with vigor all over 
the South, and by the end of June 1868 Arkansas, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and 
Louisiana had done the things required by the Reconstruction 
Act and had been reestablished in the Union. Virginia, Mis- 
sissippi, and Texas were unable to secure the proper ratification 
of the constitution and were therefore compelled to remain 
outside the Union under the rule of their military govern- 
ors. 



John- 
son 
and 
Congress 



156. THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND CON- 
GRESS: IMPEACHMENT. 

While Congress was pursuing its purposes in regard to re- 
construction, it was at the same time carrying on an un- 
seemly contest with the President. The quarrel between 
Johnson and Congress arose over a difference of opinion as 
to the proper method of dealing with the rcconstnictidii 
I)roblem. Johnson, like Lincoln, l)elicved thai the Civil War 
was a mere uprising (p. 439) with which the IVesident, 
and not Congress, should deal, and he contended that the 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 



48s 



Southern States had never been out of the Union, He there- 
fore had no sympathy with the measure of Congress which 
encroached upon the power of the State. He vetoed the 
bill creating the Freedman's Bureau and also the Civil Rights 

Bill because he regarded those laws as contrary to the Consti- The 

„ Tenure 

tution. Congress resented this attitude of Johnson and it set of 

, 1 , • , , , . . Office 

about to hamper him and thwart his purposes m every way it Act 
could. In 1867 it passed the Tenure of Office Act prohibiting 
the President from removin"- ci\-i1 officers of tlip nrA\-.^i-nment 




The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. 



save with the consent of the Senate and imposing a punishment 
of a fine and imprisonment if the act should be violated. 
Johnson regarded this law as an outrage upon the executive, 
and in very intemperate language denounced Congress for 
passing it. He desired the resignation of his Secretary of 
War, Edwin 'M. Stanton, who opposed him in his plans for 
reconstruction and who was the author of the Tenure of Office 
Act. Stanton refused to resign, whereupon the President 
suspended him from office and when the Senate refused to 



486 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Impeach- 
ment 
Proceed- 
ings 



sanction the removal, Johnson disobeyed the Tenure of 
Office Act comi)letely and compelled Stanton to give up his 
office. 

The removal of Stanton incensed Congress to such a degree 
that it brought (bY-bruary 1867) im])eachment proceedings 
against Johnson, In the House of Representatives it was de- 
cided by a vote of 126 to 47 that he 1)e impeached of high 
crimes and misdemeanors. The imj)eachment was then tried 
before the bar of the Senate. The trial was a mere form. 
The question was not whether Johnson had committed any 
crime — for everybody knew that there had been nothing crim- 
inal in his conduct — but whether he should be deposed from 
the Presidency because of his opposition to Congress. The trial 
lasted two months and when the vote was taken (May 16, 
1868), thirty-five of the Senators present voted "guilty" and 
nineteen " not guilty." As a two-thirds vote was required 
for conviction, Johnson escaped by the narrow margin of one 
vote. So Congress failed to get rid of Johnson and he re- 
mained in the Presidency until the expiration of his term 
(March 4, 1869).^ 



1 The French in Mexico (1861-67); the Purchase of Alaska. — While the domestic 
question of reconstruction was the all-absorbing theme during Johnson's administra- 
tion, there were two events connected with foreign affairs that require notice. 
One of these was our intervention in the affairs of Mexico. In 1861 France, 
England, and Spain, acting together, sent an armed force to Mexico to hold her 
seaports until certain debts were paid. But England and Spain soon withdrew 
their troops, leaving France to act alone. The Emperor of France, Napoleon III, 
desired to establish the French power in Mexico. He accordingly overthrew the 
Mexican government and made Maximilian, a brother of the Emperor of Austria, 
the Emperor of Mexico. All this, it will be observed, was contrary to the 
Monroe Doctrine. Still, at the time, the United States could do nothing but pro- 
test, for it had the Civil War on its hands. As soon as the war was over, how- 
ever, General Sheridan, with a large army, was despatched to the Mexican 
frontier. France saw what was coming, and the French troops were at once 
withdrawn (in 1867) from Mexico. Maximilian fell into the hands of the Mexi- 
cans and was promptly shot. 

Another important event of Johnson's administration was the purchase of 
Alaska, which then belonged to Russia. In 1867, the Russian minister at Wash- 
ington offered to sell to the United States Russia's possession in America for the 
sum of $7,200,000. The offer was accepted " with almost comical alacrity," and 
an area of 577,000 square miles was added to our territory. At the time it was 
thought by many that we had made a bad bargain, but in fact we made a very 
good bargain, for the furs, fisheries, gold-fields, and coal lands of Alaska are 
worth the purchase price several hundred times over. 




[united states 

From 1776 to 1867 \ 



G r I t' i; 

The acquisitions made by the United States from 

1776 to 1867 are shown by different colors. 

The boundaries of the States and Territories at-the close 

ot 186, are outlined by solid green lines: 

The Capitals of the States and Territories 

in 1S67 are shown on map by: 





THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 487 

157. THE FINAL MEASURES OF RECONSTRUCTION. 
About the time the Senate was sitting in judgment upon The 

, ,. . . . Presi- 

the impeachment of Johnson, the pohticians were preparnig dentiai 
for the presidential election of 1868. The Republicans held of 
their National Convention in Chicago and nominated General 
(irant by a unanimous vote. The Republican platform ap- 
proved the reconstruction policy which had been followed by 
Congress, declaring that the granting of the suffrage to the ne- 
gro was demanded by every consideration of public safety, grat- 
itude, and justice. The Democrats held their Convention in 
New York City and nominated Horatio Seymour of New York. 
In their platform, the Democrats denounced the reconstruction 
acts as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void, and praised 
Johnson for " resisting " the aggressions of Congress upon 
the constitutional rights of the States. Grant received 214 
electoral votes, and Seymour 80. An analysis of the popular 
vote, however, showed that the victory for Grant was not 
so overwhelming as the electoral vote indicated. Seymour 
gained New York, New Jersey, and Oregon, while in the great 
States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, the 
vote was extremely close. Had the suffrage been confined 
to the whites in the former slaveholding States, and had these 
States all participated in the election, the Democrats in all 
probability would have been victorious. The returns showed 
plainly enough that the Republicans in 1868 were holding 
power by a rather slender thread. 

But the leaders of the Republicans soon attempted to The 
strengthen their hold. In the session of Congress following Amend- 
the election of 1868 the Fifteenth Amendment was proposed 
(February 1869) to the States for adoption. The true in- 
tent and spirit of this amendment was to place the colored man 
and the white man on the same footing in respect to voting, 
and to keep him on the same footing. It was true that the 
constitutions of the reconstructed States gave the negro the 
suffrage (p. 483) but it was also true that these constitutions 
might be changed. If, however, the Fifteenth Amendment 



488 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

were once adopted, the negro, it was thought, would enjoy the 
right of suffrage for all time. The impulse that moved the 
Republican majority in Congress to pass the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment was largely a partisan impulse. The Republican party 
in 1868 was successful in several Southern States in which it 
would have been unsuccessful had it not been for the negro 
vote. Here was a reason why the amendment would bene- 
fit the Republican party : it would secure to that party a perma- 
nent element of political strength in the South. So the Fif- 
teenth Amendment, the climax of the reconstruction measures, 
was hurried through the State legislatures and on March 30. 
1870 it was proclaimed as part of the Constitution. 
The On the same day upon which the Fifteenth Amendment was 

of the promulgated as the law of the land, the last of the seceding 
struction States was readmitted into the Union. President Grant in 

Meas- M- • 

ures his inaugural address foreshadowed a policy of conciliation 

in dealing with the Southern situation and he took as his motto. 
" Let us have peace." His administration was not far ad- 
vanced before the work of reconstruction was finished. Mis- 
sissippi and Virginia were readmitted on February 23, 1870, 
and Texas on March 30, 1870. In May 1872, an Amnesty 
Act removed the political disabilities of nearly all persons who 
were excluded from office (155) by the terms of the Four- 
teenth Amendment. This act was the last of the great re- 
construction measures and it was a most beneficent law. for 
it pardoned nearly 150,000 of the best citizens of the South 
and allowed them to participate in public affairs. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Problems of Reconstruction: Dunning, 3-17; Bassett, 594-596; 
Wilson, 254-257, 

2. Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction: Bassett, 59^-599; Rhodes V, 
134-138. 

3. Johnson's policy of Reconstruction: Hart IV, 468-471; Dunning, 
35-50; Rhodes V, 522-535; Bassett, 599-601; Wilson, 257-260. 

4. The Congressional plan of Reconstruction: Dunning, 51-70; Hart 
IV, 471-475; Rhodes V, 549, 553, 554, 572-580, 600-602. 



THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION 489 

5. The Fourteenth Amendment: Rhodes V, 595-597, 602-605; VI, 
4-13; Bassett, 607-609; Dunning, 66-68, 83-85, 125; Hart IV, 482-485. 

6. The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Rhodes VI, 98-156; Dun- 
ning, 92-108; Halsey IX, 82-97. 

7. The Fifteenth Amendment: Dunning, 174-186, 261-263; Rhodes 
VI, 201-204 ; Hart IV, 482-494. 

8. Civil Rights and Duties: Forman, 95-100. 

9. Thaddeus Stevens on Reconstruction : Harding, 436-442. 

10. Give a graphic account of the assassination of Lincoln. Why 
was the death of Lincoln unfortunate for the South? In what re- 
spect did the career of Johnson resemble that of Lincoln? Give an ac- 
count of Johnson's electioneering tour known as "swinging around the 
circle." Describe the South as it was at the close of the War: Hart 
IV, 448-452 ; Bassett, 619-622. Give a full account of the impeachment 
trial of Andrew Johnson. Would you have supported the Reconstruction 
policy advocated by Congress or that advocated by Johnson ? Tell the 
story of the purchase of Alaska. Sketch the career of Maximilian, 
the Emperor of Mexico. 

11. Special Reading. W. A. Dunning, Essays on flic Cwil JJ'ar and 
Reconstruction. J. W. Burgess. Reconstruction and the Constitution. 
James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress. G. W. Williams, History 
of the Negro Race in America. 



XLI 

EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES (1869-1877) 

Although there was great industrial and commercial progress dur- 
ing the eight! years (1869-1877) of Grant's administration, it was 
nevertheless a period in which the aftermath of the Civil War showed 
itself in evil fashion; a period of agitation and unrest and lawless- 
ness and corruption in high places. The history of the years, there- 
fore, during which Grant was President is largely a tale of troublous 
times. 

158. WESTERN DEVELOPMENT (1862-1877). 

weV At the close of the Civil War there was, west of the Missis- 

rfow- sippi, a wild, uncultivated, r.nd for the most part uninhabitable 

Tide legion more than a million square miles in extent. During 

the war the development of this western country was retarded, 

but as soon as the struggle was over the tide of population 

began to flow westward again. In 1864 Congress encouraged 

the development of the West by passing an immigration law 

which specifically exempted immigrants from military service 

and provided means for assisting newly-arrived foreigners 

c' to reach the end of their western journey with as little 

•^1 trouble and expense as possible. The mustering out of the 

'''^ Union troops at the close of the war was also a stiiuulus to 

the Westward Movement. Between May 1865 and June 

1866, nearly 1,000,000 soldiers laid down their arms and 

entered into the pursuits of peaceful life. Vast numbers 

1 In 1872 General Grant was reelected over Horace Greeley of New York by 
an electoral vote of 286 to 63. Greeley was nominated by the Democrats and also 
by the liberal Republicans, a group of Republicans who were dissatisfied with the 
way in which their party was managing the affairs of the country. Greeley was 
distasteful to the majority of the Democrats and he failed to poll the full party 
vote. 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 491 - 

of these disbanded men, hardened to adventure and re- 
luctant to turn back to quiet Hfe, went straight to the West 
to try their fortunes. 

Another powerful agency for developing the West after The 

the war was the Union Pacific Railroad. The charter for Pacific 

Rail- 
building a great transcontinental highway was granted by "^d 

Congress in 1862. To encourage the building of the road Con- 
gress gave the companies constituting it (i) a right of way 
through the public domain; (2) the privilege of taking along 
the route such timber, stone, and earth as might be required 
for building the roadbed; (3) a loan from the Government 
varying from $16,000 to $48,000 per mile; (4) twenty sec- 
tions of land — 12,800 acres — alongside each mile of the 
road. The public land granted to the companies first and 
last amounted in all to 33,000,000 acres, an area considerably 
larger than the entire State of Pennsylvania. The road was 
built by two companies, one of which worked westward from 
Omaha and the other from Sacramento eastward. In Ne- 
braska the railroad was regarded by the Indians as an in- 
trusion and building operations had to be carried on under 
military protection, the engineers and workmen often being 
called upon " to exchange the peaceful theodolite, pick, and 
shovel for the ever-ready rifle." The construction was com- 
pleted at Ogden, Utah, where two trains, one eastbound, the 
other westbound, met in May 1869. 

The benefits of the Union Pacific were first felt in Nebraska Nebraska 
where a ribbon of settlements soon appeared along the line Wyoming 
of the road. We saw (p. 411) that the Nebraskans were urg- 
ing their claims to statehood as early as 1859. When the war 
was over the struggle for admission was renewed and in 1867 
Nebraska was made a State. With the completion of the 
Union Pacific, Nebraska was connected with the markets of 
the world and her development was indeed rapid. By 1880 
she had a population of nearly 500,000 and was taking her 
place as one of the great grain-growing States of the Union. 
Wyoming practically owes its existence to a railroad. In 1867 
the Union Pacific laid out the town of Cheyenne, and the 



492 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Colorado 



The 
New 
North- 
west 



The 

Custer 

Massacre 



next year the Territory of Wyoming was created by Congress. 
Colorado (p. 412), also, soon felt the benefits of the Union 
Pacific. In 1870 Denver was connected by a railroad with 
the Union Pacific system, and six years later Colorado was 
admitted as the " Centennial State.'' When it was admitted 
nearly all its wealth was in its mines (p. 412), but the people 
of Colorado understood the value of irrigation ; they watered 
by artificial means millions of acres of arid lands so that in 
time these irrigated lands more than equaled in value the 
products of the mines. 

Railroad-building also hastened the development of the 
section that may be called the New Northwest, a region ex- 
tending westward from Minnesota to the Pacific. The earliest 
settlement of this region began in 1863 when gold was dis- 
covered at the head-waters of the Missouri. The gold-fields 
were first reached by steamboats which ran from St. Louis 
to Fort Benton, the head of navigation on the Upper Missouri. 
In 1864 Congress encouraged the opening of the Xew North- 
west by chartering the Northern Pacific Railroad and grant- 
ing it a subsidy of nearly 43,000,000 acres of the public 
lands, an area greater than that of all New England. The 
Northern Pacific was to connect Duluth on Lake Superior with 
Portland, Oregon, and with Tacoma and Seattle on Puget 
Sound. 

The presence of white men in the country of the U^pper 
Missouri was resented by the Indians even more bitterly than 
it was in the Nebraska country. To the workmen who built 
the Northern Pacific the redskins were especially troublesome. 
In 1876 it became necessary to send regular United States 
troops against the Indians in order that they might be sub- 
jugated and brought to terms. Before their reduction was 
achieved, however, they dealt our troops a terrible blow. In 
southern Montana a large force of Sioux Indians under 
Chief Sitting Bull suddenly surrounded a division of 260 men 
under General George Custer and killed every man, includ- 
ing the brave Custer himself. Notwithstanding this reverse, 
the task of subduing the Indian was continued and in a few 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 493 

years the white man was the undisputed master of the entire 
Northwest. 

With the Indians put down and the means of transporta- Idaho 
tion established, the New Northwest rapidly changed from a 
state of savagery to a state of civilization. Idaho was or- 
ganized as a Territory in 1863 and Montana was made a Montana 
Territory in 1864. The Dakotas (p. 411), which in i860 had 
a combined population of less than 5,000, by 1880 had a popu- 
lation of 135,000. In the wilderness along the banks of the 
Upper Missouri, where nothing dwelt except wild animals 
and fierce Indians, and where one could travel for days at 
a time without seeing a single white man, towns were built 
and fields were brought under cultivation. Yankton, Pierre, 
Sioux Falls, and Bismarck became thriving centers of trade. 
Civilization also made its way to the newly-found gold-fields 
and within a few years Virginia City and Helena were pros- 
perous cities. 

159. INDUSTRIAL PROSPERITY AND INDUSTRIAL 
REVERSES. 

The opening of the West led to an enormous extension Agricui- 
of our agricultural area. Between i860 and 1880 the number 
of our farms doubled and the accompanying increase of im- 
proved farm land amounted to about 120,000,000 acres. As 
a result, by 1880 we were producing 30 per cent, of the grain of 
the world. Since this was vastly more than we needed we had 
a surplus to send abroad. We could export this grain at a 
profit, for the competition of the railways lowered the rates 
of transportation from the West to the seaboard. Our foreign 
shipments of wheat, which before and during the Civil War 
were becoming considerable (p. 471), had by 1880 risen to 
150,000,000 bushels a year. In truth, by 1880 we were by 
far the greatest grain-exporting nation in the world. 

With agriculture expanding in this manner, the manufactur- Manufac- 
ing industries were bound to prosper. Indeed, after the war 
manufacturing in the United States took on new life, and 
flourished as never before. There were several reasons why 



494 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

this should be so. In the first place the ever-expanding West 
gave the Eastern manufacturers an ever-expanding market 
for their goods. Then, after the fighting of the Civil War 
was over, tiie South renewed its demands upon the North 
for its manufactures. But perhaps the most powerful stim- 
ulus to manufacturing during this period was the high tarifif 
which had been imposed during the war (p. 468). This tariff 
was so high — the average rate on imports was 47% — that 
in many cases it was prohibitive. Under these favorable con- 
ditions the growth of manufacturing in the years following 
the war was unprecedented. An official report declared that 
during the five years after 1864 more cotton spindles were put 
into operation, more iron furnaces erected, more iron smelted, 
more steel made, more coal and copper mined, more lumber 
sawed and hewn, more houses and shops constructed, more 
manufactures of different kinds started, and more petroleum 
collected, refined and exported, than during any equal period 
in the history of the country. The increase in railroad-build- 
ing was astounding. In the four years preceding 1873 over 
25,000 miles of railroad were laid. 
The But this marvelous prosperity did not continue unbroken. 

Panic 

of^^^ In the autumn of 1873 the great banking-house of Jay Cooke 

& Co., in Philadelphia, failed to meet its obligations, and the 
failure was the beginning of the most disastrous panic the 
country had experienced. The chief cause of this panic was 
excessive railroad-building. An enormous amount of money 
had been spent in building roads that were either not needed 
at all or that could not yield a return for some years, and 
thousands of the investors in these roads found that their 
money was gone and that no dividends were being returned. 
As a result, money was scarce and with its scarcity came 
hard times. The period of hard times lasted from 1873 to 
1878. " These five years," says Rhodes, " are a long, dismal 
tale of declining markets, exhaustion of capital, and a lowering 
in value of all kinds of property, including real estate, con- 
stant bankruptcies, close economy in business, and grinding 
frugality in living; mills, furnaces, and factories reduced to 



1873 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 495 

the value of a scrap-heap, laborers out of employment, reduc- 
tions of wages, strikes and lockouts, the great railroad riots 
of 1877, suffering of the unemployed, depression and de- 
spair." ^ 

The panic of 1873 ^^^ to many disturbances in the labor organiza- 
world. In order to offset the decline in business the wages "°° 
of employees were reduced. This reduction was strongly 
opposed by the workingmen, who by this time were fairly 
well organized. Before the war, labor organization was on a 
small scale and was local in character (p. 339). Probably not 
more than four national unions were in existence in i860. 
But during the war there was great activity in the labor 
world. The laboring man did not share in the prosperity that 
came to the employers in the war times (p. 471). He paid 
higher prices for the necessities of life but his wages did not 
rise in a corresponding degree. This failure of wages to 
rise with prices led workingmen to organize in a vigorous 
fashion and in many cases they formed national unions. So 
when employers in the seventies began to lower wages the 
workingmen were in a position to resist the reduction. 

The growing power of labor was shown in the railroad strike f^^^^ 
which occurred in 1877 on the Baltimore and Ohio, the ^iot^ 
Pennsylvania, and other roads. During these strikes violence 
was resorted to and property was destroyed. In Pittsburgh 
and in Baltimore there were conflicts between the strikers and 
soldiers that resulted in the loss of a number of lives and 
in the destruction of property worth many millions of dol- 
lars. For several days Pittsburgh was in the hands of a mob 

'i- Great Fires — Another influence that may have hastened the panic of 1873 
was the destruction of property by great fires. In October 1871, a fire broke out 
in Chicago and raged for two days, destroying 7,000 buildings and causing 20 
deaths. Seventy thousand persons were rendered homeless and the property loss 
was nearly $200,000,000. In 1872 Boston was also visited by a fire which de- 
stroyed 800 of the finest buildings of the city and caused a property loss of 
_about $80,000,000. 

The Centennial — -A more cheerful event of Grant's administration was the cele- 
bration of the Centennial of America's Independence by the holding of a great 
International Exposition at Philadelphia. The Exposition furnished all nations 
an opportunity to exhibit their products, and forty of the great governments of 
the world took part in the display. It was opened on May 10, 1876, by President 
Grant, and continued open for 158 days. It was visited by nearly 10,000,000 
people. 



496 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Patrons 
of 

Hus- 
bandry 



The 

Granger 
Cases 



which burned depots, train-sheds, round-houses, and threat- 
ened to burn the entire city. The strikers for the most part 
failed in their contentions but they made it plain that labor 
organizations had become a force with which employers would 
have to reckon. 

The farmers of the Middle West also became restive, and 
began to organize for self-protection. The Patrons of Hus- 
bandry, who were first organized in 1866, became especially 
active in the seventies. They increased their organization 
until by 1876 their granges — local societies — numbered 
10,000 and their membership nearly 1,500,000. One of the 
chief aims of the Grangers, — as the Patrons were usually 
called, — was to secure from the railroads reasonable rates 
for their farm products. They succeeded in inducing the 
legislatures of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to 
fix rates for transportation charges. 

The enforcement of the granger laws was vigorously op- 
posed by the railroad owners who contended that their busi- 
ness was a private one and that the legislatures had neither 
the right nor the power to fix the rates a railroad should 
charge. They carried their case to the courts and in 1877 the 
Supreme Court of the United States in the noted " granger 
cases " decided against them, declaring that the State laws 
fixing railroad rates were valid. ^ Thus the enactment of 
granger laws was the first step in a movement that at last 
resulted in bringing the railroads completely under the control 
of the government. 



The 
Betire- 
ment 
of the 
Green- 
backs 



160. THE CURRENCY AND THE TARIFF. 

After reconstruction was accomplished, the most impor- 
tant political questions that arose for solution related to the 
public finances and to the tarilif. The national debt in 1869 
amounted to a little more than $2,500,000,000 and consisted 
of bonds and United States notes (j). 468). How was this 



1 In 1913, the .Supreme Court decided in the Minnesota Cases that a State can 
fix intrastate rates even though they affect interstate commerce, providing there 
is no federal statutt to ihe contrary. 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 497 

debt to be paid? Congress in March 1869, solemnly de- 
clared that both the bonds and the notes (greenbacks) should 
be paid in coin, that is, in gold or silver. Its pledge as to 
the bonds was kept but there was trouble about the green- 
backs. These, as we saw (p. 468), amounted at one time 
to about $450,000,000. After the war was over the govern- 
ment adopted the policy of retiring the greenbacks ; as the 
greenbacks found their way to the Treasury at Washington, 
they were destroyed, just as promissory notes are usually 
destroyed when they have been paid. The retirement of the 
greenbacks continued until 1868, when the amount of this kind 
of money had been reduced to $356,000,000. This contract- 
ing of the volume of the currency was opposed by a large num- 
ber of people who believed that the country needed more 
money, not less money. The opposition to retirement was 
strongest in the West where the expanding conditions of busi- 
ness required larger and larger sums of money. Congress 
in 1868 yielded to the sentiment against contraction and ceased 
to retire the greenbacks. But inasmuch as the greenbacks 
were to remain in circulation, it became necessary to give them 
the same currency value as gold. So, Congress in 1875 
passed the Redemption Act, which provided that after June The 
1879, the Secretary of the Treasury should redeem green- tion 
backs in gold, dollar for dollar, whenever they should be 
presented to the Treasury for redemption. In order that this 
might be done the Secretary sold bonds for gold and kept 
this gold in the treasury vaults as a special fund for redeem- 
ing the greenbacks. The amount of gold thus set aside for 
redemption purposes was $100,000,000. It was not expected 
that all the greenbacks would be presented for redemption. 
When redemption day arrived practically no greenbacks were 
presented. The mere knowledge that the notes could be ex- 
changed for gold satisfied the holders and no exchange was 
demanded. In 1878, Congress provided that when a greenback 
was redeemed in specie " it should not be retired, cancelled, 
or destroyed, but should be re-issued, and paid out again 
and kept in circulation." Thus the greenbacks- were perma- 



Act 



498 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

ncntly established in our currency system on an equal footing 
with gold. They amounted in 1879 to about $346,000,000 and 
the amount has never been materially decreased. They re- 
main part of our national debt that has never been paid. 
The Another important currency measure of Grant's administra- 

Demoni- . . . . ., t^i • i- i i 

tization tion was the demonetization of silver. 1 his was accomplished 
of . . . . 

Silver in 1 873 when Congress discontinued the free coinage of silver 

(p, 230) and established the gold dollar as the standard of 
value. At the time of its passage the law demonetizing silver 
inflicted no hardship upon the holders of the white metal, for 
the bullion in a silver dollar was worth about $1.02 in gold 
and it was more profitable to keep silver in its bullion form 
than it was to coin it. But about the same time that silver 
was demonetized, Germany began to withdraw large quanti- 
ties of silver from circulation and several other countries 
of Europe began to restrict the coinage of silver. Moreover, 
there was presently an enormous increase in the output of 
the silver mines of Nevada. The result was that in the 
years following 1873 silver as compared to gold fell in value. 
By 1876 the silver in a dollar was worth only ninety cents. 
Those who held silver bullion now wanted the remonetiza- 
tion of silver; that is, they wanted free coinage at the old 
rate of 16 to i. 
Keduc- Several attempts were made in Congress during Grant's 

of administration to lower the tarifif rates, but very little was 

accomplished in that direction. In 1870, however, a half- 
hearted measure was passed reducing duties on some articles 
in which the American manufacturers had little interest. 
There was a slight reduction on pig iron, but this was offset 
by an increase of duty on steel rails. In 1870 there was 
also a substantial reduction in the internal taxes which had 
been so indiscriminately imposed (p. 468) on domestic articles 
during the war. In the same year the income tax was re- 
duced, and provision was made that it should speedily ex- 
pire. This tax was always unpopular and it was flagrantly 
evaded. Yet during the eleven years of its existence it yielded 
nearly $350,000,000 of revenue. 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 499 

i6i. THE AFTERMATH OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

While Congress was dealing with currency matters and the Carpet 
tariff it was also giving a share of its attention to the affairs ^"le 
of the South, for the settlement of the Southern question 
was by no means completed when the last of the reconstruc- 
tion (p. 488) acts was passed. A pernicious and disturbing 
element in the South consisted of the carpet-baggers (p. 484). 
These men, as a rule, were of such questionable character 
that they could not have been elected to a petty office in 
the Northern communities from which they came. In the 
South, however, by playing upon the prejudices of the ne- 
groes and taking advantage of their ignorance, they were 
able to secure the votes of the negroes and rise to the highest 
offices in the State. The purpose of the carpet-baggers was 
to make money out of politics, and in the States where carpet- 
bag government secured a foothold, there was the most shame- 
ful corruption. For instance, in South Carolina, where the 
carpet-baggers for a while held full sway, $200,000 was spent 
by the legislature for furniture and $150,000 for printing. 
Of course most of this money was what we would now 
call "graft." The most expensive wines, liquors, and cigars 
were ordered to be sent to the boarding-houses of the mem- 
bers, many of whom were ex-slaves. Upon one occasion the 
legislature of South Carolina appropriated $1,000 to re-imburse 
the speaker of the house for a loss he had sustained by betting 
on a horse-race. The winner of the bet was the negro mem- 
ber who made the motion that the money be appropriated ! In 
the conduct of the government the most shocking ignorance 
prevailed. In Alabama in one county the sheriff was a negro 
who could not read. In the legislatures the negroes were 
so ignorant that they could only watch their white leaders 
— carpet-baggers — and vote .aye or no as they were told. 

As early as 1866 the native whites of the South began to The 

•' . ° Ku-Klux- 

protect themselves agamst the carpet-baggers and the negroes. Kian 
They organized a secret society which was known as the Ku- 
Klux-Klan. The purpose of this organization was to prevent 



L 




500 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

the negro from voting, to compel him to work at reasonable 
wages, and to lead a quiet, peaceable life. The society did 
everything it could to make the life of the carpet-bagger 
miserable. In order to terrify the negro the members of 

the Klan wore a 
l 4k , f ^ white mask, a tall 

card-board hat, 
and a gown that 
covered the whole 
body. When the 
Klan went on 
horseback the bod- 
ies of the horses 
were covered with 
white sheets and 
the feet of the 

horses were muf- 
The trial of an accused white man by the flg(J Qq ^J^g q^. 
Ku-Klux-Klan. . . , 

per contammg the 

threats sent to the negroes were pictures of crossed swords, 
skulls, owls, bloody moons, and the like. But in carrying out 
its purposes, the Klan sometimes went further than merely to 
terrify the negro; in some cases acts of violence were com- 
mitted. Indeed, the offenses of the Ku-Klux-Klan became so 
great that in 1871 Congress took matters in hand and passed 
a series of Force Laws, the enforcement of which caused the 
society to be suppressed and many of its members to be ar- 
rested. 

162. CORRUPTION IN HIGH PLACES. 

The But bad government in the days of Grant's administration 

Ring was not confined to the carpet-bag regimes in the South. 

In 1870 William M. Tweed and his gang were robbing the tax- 
payers of New York City as shamefully as the carpet-bag- 
gers were robbing the taxpayers of South Carolina. Tweed 
was the " boss " of Tammany Hall and the local leader of 
the Democratic party. He secured the control of the city 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES 501 

government and plundered the city treasury on a scale unparal- 
leled in the history of public theft. The favorite method of 
stealing was by raising the accounts of those who worked for 
the city or furnished it with supplies. For example, if a man 
had a bill against the city for $5,000 he was asked to raise 
it to $55,000. When this was done, the one presenting the 
bill received $5,000 while the remaining $50,000 were divided 
among the members of the Tweed Ring. In this manner 
a plasterer working on the court-house received $133,000 in 
two days ! After the ring had carried on its corrupt practices 
for two or three years and had stolen a sum variously es- 
timated at from $45,000,000 to $200,000,000, Tweed fell into 
the clutches of the law and was imprisoned, the man who did 
most to overthrow him being Samuel J. Tilden. 

The corruption of the time was so widespread that charges credit 

,. , , . , J. ^ Mobilier 

of venality were brought even agamst members 01 Congress 
and of the President's Cabinet.^ In 1872 scandals began to 
come to light in regard to the transactions of the Credit 
Mobilier, the construction company which built the Union 
Pacific Railroad. It was charged that certain Senators and 
Representatives had been bribed by the Credit Mobilier to assist 
in securing legislation favorable to the interests of the com- 
pany. A report made by a committee of investigation showed 
clearly that at least two members of the House were guilty 
of the charges brought against them. 

But more disgraceful than the afifair of the Credit Mobilier ^^.^j^ 
were the frauds committed upon the government by the ^^^s 
Whisky Ring. This was composed of distillers of St. Louis 
and of several officers of the federal government. These men 
worked together to defraud the government of its lawful 
revenue upon liquor, and it is estimated that in six years they 
put into their pockets nearly $3,000,000 that ought to have 
been paid into the treasury of the United States. Even the 
name of President Grant himself was connected with these 
frauds for he accepted as a present from a leader of the 

1 In 1876, W. W. Belknap, Secretary of War, was impeached for accepting 
bribes. Belknap at once resigned in order to escape conviction. 



1876 



502 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Whisky Ring a carriage and a pair of valuable horses, while 
his private secretary was a member of the ring and a sharer 
in its guilty profits. Grant, however, declared that he knew 
nothing of the wrong-doing of his secretary and of course 
he was innocent of any complicity with the Whisky Ring. 
Grant's administration suffered by reason of the wrong-doing 
and bad faith of some of his political associates, but every- 
body knew that personally the President was as pure and 
honest as he was brave and patriotic. 

163. THE ELECTION OF 1876. 
The When the time came for the election of a successor to 

Election , , . . . 

?i-7R Grant, the Republican party was under a cloud of suspicion 

and distrust. " The low tone of political morality," said 
George William Curtis, a leading Republican in 1876, " that 
has prevailed in ofiicial Republican service, the unceasing dis- 
position of the officers and agents of the administration of 
this country to prostitute the party organization relentlessly 
and at all costs to personal ends, has everywhere aroused the 
apprehension of the friends of free government." As their 
candidate for the Presidency in 1876 the Republicans nom- 
inated Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. The Democrats nom- 
inated Samuel J. Tilden and went before the country with a 
platform that had reform as its keynote.'^ Tilden received the 
largest popular vote, but there were only 184 electoral votes 
that were certainly his and he needed 185. The electoral votes 
of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon were 
claimed both for Hayes and for Tilden. If Hayes could secure 
all the electoral votes of all the doubtful States, he would be 
elected; if Tilden could secure only one electoral vote in any 
one of these States he would be elected. 

How was the dispute about the electoral votes of these doubt- 
ful States to be settled? Congress could not very well settle 

1 The Greenback party nominated Peter Cooper of New York. This party was 
in favor of issues of paper money based solely on the credit of the country and 
on the good faith of the government. The Prohibition party in 1876 nominated 
Green Clay Smith of Kentucky. The purpose of the Prohibition party was to 
prevent the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. 



EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLOUS TIMES So3 

the dispute according to the terms of the Constitution (148), The 
for at the time the House of Representatives was Democratic commis- 
and the Senate was Republican. If the counting of the votes 
had been left to the Republican president of the Senate (147) 
the votes of all the doubtful States would almost certainly have 
been thrown to Hayes and he would have been elected. Nor 
could Congress very well settle the dispute by its own action. 
If the two houses had acted separately there would have 
been an interminable deadlock. If they had acted upon 
the question sitting together in joint session, Tilden would 
certainly have been elected without regard to the merits 
of the case. So, to settle the difficulty Congress availed 
itself of an outside agency: it provided for the appoint- 
ment of an Electoral Commission to be composed of 
five members of the House of Representatives, five Senators, 
and five associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
States — fifteen members in all. After the organization of 
the Commission was completed its membership consisted of 
8 Republicans and 7 Democrats. The Commission by a vote 
of 8 to 7 decided that all the electoral votes of all the doubt- 
ful States belonged to Hayes, who was accordingly declared to 
be elected, and was inaugurated March 4, 1877. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The South after the War: Halsey IX, 59-69; Dunning, 233-237; 
E. B. Andrews, The United States in Our Own Time, 111-130. 

2. The first railroad across the continent: Halsey IX, 122-130; Dun- 
ning, 144-146, 231-233. 

3. Trace the progress of manufacturing between i860 and 1880: 
Bogart, 408-421. 

4. Giive an account of the Chicago Fire as described by an eye wit- 
ness : Halsey IX, 135-150. 

5. The Greeley campaign: Halsey IX, 173-180; Rhodes VI, 412- 

434- 
6. The overthrow of the Tweed Ring: Rhodes VI, 392-411; Halsey 

IX, 151-157. 

7. The Panic of 1873: Bassett, 665-668; Halsey IX, 181-187; Rhodes 
VII, 3^52. 



S04 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

8. The Ku-Klux-Klan: Hart, 495-497; Rhodes VI, 180-183, 312- 
316; Dunning, 121-123, 186-188. 

9. The Electoral Commission: Dunning, 309-341; Rhodes, 254-279; 
Hart IV, 505-507. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1872, 1876. 

11. For the table of admitted States: West Virginia, Nevada, Ne- 
braska, Colorado. 

12. Give an account of the capture of the Virginius. What was the 
"crime of 1873"? What was the "tidal wave of 1874"? Describe the 
" Black Friday " : Halsey IX, 131-134. What were the principal 
causes of the growth of our grain exports after i860? Bogart, 307- 
315. Describe a " bonanzo " farm of the West: {World's Work, Vol. 
VIII). Give the history of the Alabama Claims and the Geneva 
Award; Bassett, 670-674; Haworth, 60-63, 

13. Special Reading. W. G. Brown, The Lower South in American 
History. Woodrow Wilson, History of the American People, Vol V. 
R. E. Lee, Recollections and Letters. 



XLII 

EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH (1877-1885) 

By the time Hayes entered upon the Presidency (March 1877) 
the evils which followed in the wake of the Civil War were van- 
ishing and the country was approaching an era of industrial and 
commercial development more striking than any that had gone be- 
fore. This development absorbed by far the greater part of the 
nation's energy and received by far the greater part of the citizen's 
interest and attention. After the days of the Reconstruction political 
questions began to be neglected and the deep currents of American 
life were turned to commerce and industry. 

164. HAYES; GARFIELD; ARTHUR. 

Hayes, tliroughout his administration, was beset by diffi- The 
culties of the most trying nature. He was handicapped by a cuiues 

widespread suspicion that his elec- Hayes 

tion had not been secured by fair 
means. He was confronted by a 
hostile majority in one or both 
Houses of Congress during his en- 
tire term of ofifice. Within six 
months after his inauguration he 
lost the support of the leaders of 
his own party, and he never re- 
gained their support. Neverthe- 

' less, Hayes was an upright and J 

honorable administrator and he Rutherford B. Hayes. 

I proved to be precisely the kind of President the country 
needed. 

I The country needed a cessation of bitterness between the 

SOS 




5o6 



ADVANCED AlVIERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Removal 
of the 
Troops 



The 
Bland- 
Allison 
Silver 
Bill 



North and the Soutli, and at the outset Hayes undertook to 
estabhsh peaceful and harmonious relations between the two 
sections. One of liis first political acts was to withdraw from 
the South the troops that were being employed in maintain- 
ing the governments established during the process of re- 
construction (p. 484). Most of the Federal troops had been 
withdrawn from the South during the administration of 
Cirant, but a few hundred soldiers were still supporting the 
carpet-bag governments of South Carolina and Louisiana. 
Hayes ordered (April 1877) the troops in these two States 
to be withdrawn and with their withdrawal the carpet-bag 
governments fell. This action of the President incurred the 
displeasure of his party associates for it broke the power of 
the Republican party in the South. But the withdrawal of 
the troops was a blessing to the Southern people, for they 
could now assume control of their own affairs. The peaceful 
policy of Hayes bore fruit. The feeling of enmity between 
the North and the South began to pass away and the wounds 
caused by the war healed rapidly. 

Inasmuch as the President and the Congress belonged to 
different parties, the history of the administration of Hayes 
is largely a story of a contest between the law-making and 
the executive departments. The most important measure 
passed while Hayes was President was passed in 1878 over 
his veto. This was the Bland-Allison Silver Bill which at- 
tempted to undo in part the work which was done by the 
demonetization of silver (p. 498), The law provided that 
the Secretary of the Treasury should buy not less than 
$2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 worth of silver bullion 
each month and coin it into silver dollars. The original bill 
provided for the free and unlimited coinage of silver, but 
.Senator Allison of Iowa secured an amendment restricting 
the amount to be coined. The debate and the voting on this 
bill showed that in the West there was a strong sentiment 
for the free coinage of silver. 

In his speech of acceptance Hayes announced that it was his 
" inflexible purpose " not to be a candidate for reelection. He 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 507 

would hardly have been able to secure a renomination if The 

Presi- 

he had desired one for he was extremely unpopular with the dentiai 

,-,,,. - . . ,. Caudi- 

party managers. When the time came for nomniatmg a candi- dates in 
date to succeed Hayes, a determined effort was made to re- 
nominate General Grant. But cries of " Csesarism " and " no 
third term " were raised and the efforts to renominate the 
ex-President failed. The candidate chosen by the Republi- 
cans in 1880 was James A. Garfield of Ohio, the vice-presi- 
dential candidate being Chester A. Arthur of New York. 
The Republican platform called for protection to American 
labor, that is, for a protective tariff, and for a " thorough, 
rational, and complete reform of the civil service." The 
Democrats nominated General Winfield Scott Hancock of 
Pennsylvania, and declared for a tariff for revenue. The 
Greenback party nominated General James B. Weaver of Iowa. 
The Prohibitionists nominated Neal Dow of Maine. 

The campaign of 1880 was a mild and uneventful affair. The 
There was little of the sectional bitterness that in previous paign 

... ,-,, and its 

campaigns had shown itself in ugly ways. Orators some- ecsuUb 
times attempted to wave the " bloody shirt," that is, to arouse 
animosity against the South, but usually they met with a cool 
reception. The Democrats promised a tariff for revenue with 
incidental protection and the Republicans a tariff for protec- 
tion with incidental revenue. But in reality the tariff was not 
made a clear-cut issue, for it was discussed by both parties 
in a vague and evasive manner. Garfield secured the majority 
of electoral votes, although the thread by which the Republicans 
retained power was almost as slender as it had been in 1876. 
There were nearly 9,000,000 votes cast for Garfield and Han- 
cock together, yet the majority of the former over the latter 
was only 7018. 

When General Garfield entered upon his duties (March 4, The 

1881) he found himself overwhelmed by applications for of- for 

. Office 
fice. The example set by Jackson (p. 310) of rewarding his 

political friends by giving them the offices gradually led to the 

custom of turning out large numbers of office-holders at every 

change in administration and replacing them by the friends 



5o8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Assassina* 

tion 

of 

Garfield 



Arthur 



Presi- 
dent 




James A. Garfield. 



of the incoming administration. Of course this custom created 
an unhealthy thirst for office and by Garfield's time the 
demands upon a new President exceeded the bounds of reason. 

Thousands who had worked for 
Garfield in the campaign came for- 
ward to share in the distribution 
of the offices. Office-seekers way- 
laid the President " when he ven- 
tured from the shelter of his offi- 
cial residence and followed him to 
the door of the church in which he 
worshiped." In truth, by 1880 the 
spoils system had become a na- 
tional scandal and disgrace. 

While in the midst of a bitter 
contention with Senators Conk- 
ling and Piatt of New York about the distribution of 
patronage in that State, President Garfield was made the 
victim of an assassin's bullet. On July 2, 1881, in the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Station at Washington, he was shot in the 
back by an unbalanced fanatic who was at the same time a 
disappointed office-seeker. The wounded President was taken 
to Elberon, New Jersey, where he lay for some months fight- 
ing against death with splendid courage. But he slowly suc- 
cumbed and on September 19 he passed away. 

On the day after (^larfield's death, Vice-President Arthur was 
sworn in as President. Arthur had l)een nominated with the 
view of placating a faction of Republicans in New York who 
desired the renomination of Grant. The political associates 
of the new President were of the machine type and it was 
feared by many that he would conduct the affairs of the 
nation on a low plane. But such fears were groundless. 
President Arthur performed the duties of his high office in 
a conscientious manner and with ability and dignity. " Firm, 
wise, and vigilant, his administration was one of the very 
best in all our history." 

The assassination of a President by the hands of an office- 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 509 

seeker called the attention of the country in a most forcible The 
manner to the evils of the spoils system, and spurred Congress service 
to take measures to abate those evils. In 1883 Senator Pen- 
dleton of Ohio introduced a bill which had for its purpose 
the abolition of the spoils system and the establishment of 
the " merit system " in the making of appointments to the civil 
service. This bill was passed and became known as the Civil 
Service Law. It authorized the President to appoint three 
commissioners — the Civil Service Commission — who should 
hold examinations to ascertain the qualifications of those who 
applied for office. The law guaranteed appointment upon the 
basis of merit, for it provided that only those could be ap- 
pointed who had passed the examinations and who were best 
qualified. Under the Pendleton Act the spoils system was 
gradually abandoned and the merit system established. 

165. INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS (1877-1885). 

During the administrations of Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur, Factors 
the progress made in political matters was indeed trivial, indus- 
Between 1877 and 1885 Congress gave the country only one progress 
reform ^ of lasting importance — the Civil Service Law of 
1883. But the industrial forces which were at work during 
these years were so favorable to growth that they made the 
period one of the most remarkable in our history. The chief 
factors of this development were (i) the revival of industry 
in the South; (2) the continued advance of the railroads upon 
the wilderness of the Far West; (3) an enormous influx of 
desirable immigrants; and (4) an unusual number of ex- 
tremely useful inventions. 

(i). At the close of the War the South was in a deplor- The 
able condition. The planters were impoverished and deeply south 
in debt ; they had neither money nor credit. The plantations 
and farms were scenes of desolation. The buildings were di- 

1 In 1883 Congress revised the tariff, but the measure was of small importance, 
as the act made an average reduction of only about 3%, the duties being reduced 
on the cheaper grades of woolen and cotton goods and raised on the finer grades. 
The act of 1883, although relatively unimportant, was the first serious revision 
made in the tariff after the Civil War. 



510 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Railroad 
Build- 
ing 
in the 
Far 
West 



lapidated and the fields were untillcd. The system of slave 
labor was destroyed and the freedmen were in a demoralized 
condition in respect to employment and wages. Many of them 
did not want to work at all, for they thought that to be free 
meant to be free from toil. But in good time the people of 
the Southland rallied and created a new South. The labor 
system was adjusted to new conditions and the resources of 
the Southern States were exploited on a scale never before 
known. By 1880 the South was on its feet industrially and 
financially and by 1890 it was highly prosperous. It was rais- 
ing vastly more cotton than before the War, and besides it was 
establishing manufactures and working its rich mines of 
coal and iron. " We have found out," said a distinguished 
Southerner, Henry W. Grady, in 1886, " we have found out 
that in the general summing-up the free negro counts for 
more than he did as a slave. We have sown towns and cities 
in the place of theories and put business above politics. We 
have challenged your spinners in Massachusetts and your iron- 
workers in Pennsylvania. . . . We admit that the sun shines 
as brightly and the moon as softly as it did ' before the War.' 
We have established thrift in city and country. We have 
fallen in love with work." 

(2). The Far West was also in love with work. Especially 
was it industrious in building railroads and opening up new 
land to settlement. By 1880 the Northern Pacific (p. 492) 
had been built from Duluth clear across Minnesota and Dakota, 
and in 1883 trains bearing guests from Chicago and from 
Portland met at a point in Montana where a spike was driven 
to mark the completion of the great Northern highway. Even 
earlier than this, transcontinental railroads were opening up 
a new Southwest. In 1881 a railroad which was afterwards 
known as the Southern Pacific was in operation between New 
Orleans and the Pacific Coast. Two years later the Atchison, 
Topeka, and Santa Fe was completed and one could travel by 
rail from Kansas City to Los Angeles, There were now four 
great iron highways extending across the continent, like four 
mighty navigable rivers, to bear the burden of travel and trade. 




EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH SH 

(3). The lands opened up by the railways invited the im- ^^^^src 
migrant and quickly the immigrant came. The period of good 
times which succeeded the period 
of panic (1873-1877) brought an 
influx of immigrants such as the 
country had never before seen. 
Between 1878 and 1885 more than 
4,000,000 foreigners sought to im- 
prove their condition by coming to 
the United States. In the single 
year 1882 immigration reached the 
enormous total of 788,000. Mil- 
lions of these new-comers were 
able-bodied, intelligent toilers and 

there was a brisk demand in the 

.j^., ,jr ^u • u ■ 1 Chester A. Arthur. 

mdustnal world for their bram and 

brawn. In seeking new homes these immigrants spread over 
almost the entire country. Only a small proportion of them, 
however, settled in the South. Large numbers of them re- 
mained in the East where as artisans and skilled workmen they 
took their places in shops and factories. But large numbers 
also were farmers and these for the most part sought the free 
land of the West. Many were Swedes and Norwegians who 
went to the Northwest and helped to build up Minnesota and 
Dakota.^ 

(4). The demands of the time called for new inventions 
and as usual the inventor rose to the occasion. The develop- 

1 Restrictions upon Immigration. — Foreigners were coming to our shores in 
such great numbers during this period that about 1880 we began to feel that 
unlimited and unrestricted immigration was no longer desirable, so we began to 
place restraints upon the admission of foreigners. On the Pacific Coast Dennis 
Kearney led a movement against the further admission of Chinese and in response 
to this agitation Congress, in 1882, passed a law excluding Chinese laborers from 
the United States for a period of ten years, an exclusion which was renewed in 
1892, and again in 1902. In 1882 Congress also ordered the deportation of all immi- 
grants who by reason of physical or mental defects were found to be persons 
unable to take care of themselves. In 1885 Congress made it unlawful for 
certain classes of laborers to enter the United States if previous to their coming 
they had entered into a contract to perform labor here. As a further hindrance 
to immigration Congress from time to time raised the tax imposed upon immi- 
grants. The tax in 1913 was four dollars on each immigrant. 



512 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

The ment of the West was greatly hastened by improvements 

piovf in farm machinery. The gang-plow — a series of several 

Self- plows joined together, mounted on wheels and drawn by 

traction engines — replaced the plow that was drawn by horses 
and turned but a single furrow. The simple reaper of the 
early McCormick type was replaced by the self-binder/ 
whose steel fingers as if with human intelligence bound 
the sheaves as fast as they were cut. With the steam- 
plow and the improved reaper one agricultural laborer was 
as efficient in the production of grain as two had been before 
these inventions were brought into use. Transportation also 
received a stimulus from invention. In 1858 Sir Henry Bes- 
semer of England invented a process by which tons of molten 
iron could be run into a furnace and in a few minutes be 
converted into a fine quality of steel. By 1870 American 
iron manufacturers were taking advantage of this process and 
steel were making steel rails for railroads and were constructing 

steel boilers for locomotives. With a steel rail that could 
stand immense friction w'ithout being injured and a steel 
boiler that could carry steam at great pressure, it was pos- 
sible to build locomotives that would draw large trains, and 
it was also possible to run the trains faster. But these heavy, 
fast-running trains could not be stopped by the simple hand 
brake that was in use. Sometimes a train would run as 
much as half a mile beyond a station before it could be stopped, 
and then when " backed " it would again pass beyond the 
station. So the problem of stopping a train became almost 
as important as that of starting one. George Westinghouse 
Mr- solved the problem by inventing the air-brake, a powerful 

brake which was operated directly from the engine by means of 
compressed air. Electricity also was brought into use for pur- 
poses of transportation. In 1882 Thomas A. Edison, of j\Ienlo 
Park in New Jersey, showed that a car could be operated by 
electricity. About 1885, street cars began to take their power 
from wires charged with electricity and the day of the trolley- 

1 Later the self-binder was followed by the complete harvester, which cut the 
grain, threshed it, and put it into sacks. 




^ 



The first passenger train in America, 1831. 





Trevethick's engine^ 1803. 



Peter Cooper's engine, 1830. 





An engine in the Porties. 



An engine in the Seventies. 




Photograph used by permission of Baldwin Locomotive Works 



An engine of to-day. 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION. 



graph 



514 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

car was at hand. Electricity was also used for illumina- 
tion. In 1878 Charles F. Brush of Cleveland, Ohio, invented 
a system of arc-lighting and soon the streets of our cities 
were illuminated with a light that fairly rivaled the light of 
day. The arc-light was excellent for lighting streets but it 
was not well-fitted for use within doors. But Edison soon 
Electric invented (in 1879) the electric incandescent lamp which could 
irg be used indoors as well as Qut. But the most wonderful 

inventions of the period were the telephone and the phono- 
graph. In 1876 Professor Alexander Graham Bell of Boston 
constructed an electrical apparatus which developed into the 
telephone. At first the telephone was only a toy and would 
operate only at short distances, but as improvements were 
The made the distances grew greater and greater until at last one 

phone could talk in Boston and be heard in Denver, or talk in New 

Phono- York and be heard in London. A phonograph — a sound- 
writer — in a rude form was invented by Edison in 1878. 
Ten years later the " wizard of Menlo Park " placed upon the 
market a phonograph that performed its work in a successful 
manner. 

With all these factors of progress working together, there 
is little wonder that our growth in material things during 
these years (1877-1885) was marvelous. Th^ swift rate at 
which we were moving may be learned from the table given 
below : 

TABLE OF PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 
1870 AND 1890. 

1870 1880 1890 
Farms and Farm Prop- 
erty $ 8,900,000,000 ^ $12,180,000,000 $16,082,000,000 

Farm Products 1,950,000,000 2,212,000,000 2,400,000,000 

Products of Manufac- 
turing 4,232,000,000 5,309,000,000 9,372,000,000 

Imports of Merchandise 436,000,000 668.000,000 789,000,000 

Exports of Merchandise 392,000,000 835,000,000 837.000,000 

Miles of Railroad 53.ooo 93.ooo 167,000 

1 The numbers are stated roundly and are based on the Statistical Abstract of 
igio 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 515 

1870 1880 1890 

Total Wealth 30,000,000,000 43,000,000,000 65.000,000.000 

Population 38,500,000 50,000,000 63.000,000 

Urban Population 8,000,000 11,300,000 18,200,000 

Pupils enrolled in Public 

Schools 7,000,000 10,000,000 13,000,000 

166. PROGRESS IN EDUCATION. 

This highly complex and progressive industrial develop- ^^^"'ti 
nient could not have been achieved without a very wide dif- 
fusion of knowledge among the people. The foundations of 
popular education laid before the war (p. 419) were broadened 
and deepened after the war, and by 1885 there had been es- 
tablished in every State an elaborate system of common schools 
which furnished the rudiments of education free to all chil- 
dren, both black and white. Moreover, there was now in al- 
most every State an elaborate system of high schools. The 
enrollment of pupils in the schools of the country assumed 
an enormous total. In 1870 there were 6,000,000 pupils in 
our public schools; in 1890 there were 13,000,000. Of course 
illiteracy was reduced in a corresponding degree, the percentage 
of illiterates over 10 years of age falling from 17 per cent, in 
1880 to 13.3 per cent, in 1890. 

Although the heavy expense of the public school system The 
— an expense which by 1890 amounted annually to nearly Grant 
$150,000,000 — was borne almost wholly by the State and local 
governments, yet the federal government continued to con- 
tribute liberally (p. ^2>7) to the cause of popular education. 
In 1862 Congress, " recognizing the changes consequent upon 
the introduction of machinery and the advent of steam and 
electricity as elements of industrial progress," passed the Mor- 
rill Act — usually known as the Land Grant Act — which pro- 
vided for the sale of nearly 10,000,000 acres of public lands, 
the proceeds of which were to be devoted to the support in 
every State of higher institutions of learning where technical 
and agricultural branches should be taught. As a result of 
the aid thus given nearly every State in the Union by 1885 
had established a school in which instruction was given in 



Si6 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Bureau 
of 

Educa- 
tion 



Colleges 
and 

Universi- 
ties 



Litera- 
ture 



agricultural aud other industrial arts. In a number of States 
the money received from the Morrill Act was used for found- 
ing a university, the Universities of California, Maine, Mon- 
tana, Nebraska, Nevada, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Cor- 
nell University being among the institutions that owe their 
origin to the beneficent statute. In 1867 Congress again showed 
its friendliness to the public school by establishing the federal 
Bureau of Education which under the management of such 
distinguished educators as Henry Barnard and "William Tor- 
rey Harris performed an admirable service by collecting and 
disseminating information upon almost every conceivable topic 
of educational interest. 

But it was not only public education that flourished during 
this period. Privately endowed colleges and universities in- 
creased in number at a rate never before known and the gifts 
to the higher institutions of learning were dazzling in their 
magnificence, amounting altogether to many millions of dol- 
lars. Smith, Wellesley, Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr, the 
Catholic University, Leland Stanford, Jr., and the University 
of Chicago were all founded between 1872 and 1892. As 
the higher institutions grew in number and in the extent of 
their resources they improved in their methods of instruc- 
tion. Under the leadership of Charles William Eliot, who 
for forty years was the President of Harvard, the rigid cur- 
riculum which had come down from the Middle Ages (p. 4) 
was discarded and in its place was adopted an elective system 
whereby the student was given large freedom in the choice 
of subjects to be studied. Under the leadership of Daniel 
Coit Oilman, the President of Johns Hopkins, universities 
began to emphasize the value of graduate work and to en- 
courage advanced students to make original contributions to 
knowledge. Alice Freeman Palmer, as the President of 
Wellesley, by insisting upon high standards, demonstrated that 
colleges for women can attain a grade of scholarship as 
advanced as that attained by colleges for men. 

The progress made in literature during this period fell 
short of that made in other directions. Literary productions 




Photographed by Underwood ft Uuderwou<l> li. K. 

Lower New York City from the rivci. 



5i8 ADVANCED AMI-RiC"AN IIISIOUV 

after the War did not maintain the high level reached by 1860. 
The great authors of the earHer period (p. 420) continued 
their excellent work, but books of real genius by new writers 
were few. Still, many volumes of solid worth appeared. By 
1890 William Dean Howells, Bret Harte, F. Marion Craw- 
ford, Henry James, and George W, Cable had told many 
of their best stories ; Sidney Lanier, Eugene Field, Thomas 
J>ailey Aldrich, James WhitcomI) Riley, C. II. (Joaquin) Miller, 
and R. W. Gilder had published many of their entertaining 
poems. Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain"), and E. W. 
(Bill) Nye had delighted millions of readers with their in- 
imitable humor; John Fiske, Henry Adams, and John Bach 
McMaster had made scholarly contributions to American 
history. 

167. THE GROWTH OF CITIES. 

We saw (p. 416) that by i860 manufacturing in the United 
States had almost overtaken agriculture. The Table on pages 
514, 515 shows that by 1890 manufacturing had not only passed 
agriculture but had left it far in the rear. The Table also 
shows that by 1890 our foreign trade was in a most thriving 
condition. In fact by 1890, we had become a great manufactur- 
ing and a great commercial nation. One result of this growth 
was to bring larger numbers of people together in cities. In 
1890 we were no longer a distinctly rural people, for we had 
many great cities and nearly 30 per cent, of our entire popula- 
tion was urban. In 1870 the number of towns and cities that 
had a population of over 8,000 was 226; in 1890 it was 447. 
New York, wdiich owed its growth chiefly to commerce, had in 
1890 a population of nearly 2,500,000 ^ and was ranking with 
the very largest cities of the world. Chicago, whose growth 
was also largely due to commerce — that of the Great Lakes 
— had outstripped all the cities of the West and contained 

1 This number includes the population of Brooklyn, which, however, in 1890 
was a separate municipality. In 1898 Brooklyn and several other suburbs were 
annexed to New York proper, the newly incorporated city being known as " Greater 
New York." In 19 10 Greater New York contained nearly 5,000,000 inhabitants 
and was the largest city in the world except London. 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 519 

more than a million of souls. Philadelphia, known as the 
Manchester of America because of its vast manufactures, had 
also a "populationi^ over a million. St. Louis, Boston, and 
Baltimore each had a population of nearly half a million. Nine 
other (i^ties — Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Bufifalo, San 
Francisco, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Washing- 
ton, D. C. — had passed the two hundred thousand mark, while 
Newark and Minneapolis were rapidly approaching that mark. 
Cities grew wherever trade and manufacturing flourished, and 
this was in nearly every section of the country. In New Eng- 
land, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania where manu- 
factures were most highly developed, more than half the popu- 
lation lived in cities. 

168. THE GROWTH OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 

The growth in urban population was accompanied by a Knighu 
corresponding growth in labor organizations. This was to Labor 
DC expected, for in cities it is easy for workingmen to com- 
bine and protect their interests by acting in concert. After 
the great strikes of 1877 wage-earners began to organize on 
a broader and larger scale than ever before. Up to this period 
most labor organizations were composed only of those who 
were engaged in the same trade or occupation. There 
was one labor association which admitted not only wage-earn- 
ers of different trades but all persons over sixteen, whatever 
might be their occupation, except that it did not admit " saloon- 
keepers, gamblers, bankers, or lawyers." This was the society 
known as the Knights of Labor. The motto of the Knights 
was " an injury to one is the concern of all," and its object 
was " to secure to the workmen the full enjoyment of the 
wealth they create and sufficient leisure to develop their in- 
tellectual, moral, and social faculties." The Knights declared 
in favor of woman suffrage, an eight-hour day, government 
ownership of the railroads, and the prohibition of the em- 
ployment of children (p. 335) under fourteen years of age. 
The Knights of Labor were organized in 1869 but the real 
growth of the order began after the labor troubles of 1877. 



520 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

American 
Federa- 
tion 
of 
Labor 



In 1882 the Knights had a membership of 140,000 and by 
1886, under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly, the mem- 
bership reached the high mark of 730,000. After 1886 
the Knights began to decHne both in power and in numbers. 

The decline of the Knights of Labor was due chiefly to the 
rise of the American Federation of Labor which dates its 
organization from 1881. The Federation of Labor was or- 
ganized with the purpose of uniting the trade unions into a 
federated body in much the same way as the States are united 
under the federal government. Each trade union joining 
the Federation of Labor was to be allowed to govern itself 
in respect to those matters which pertained to its own trade 
and it was to govern itself with its own officers. The dif- 
ference between the Knights of Labor and the Federation 
of Labor is stated by Samuel Gompers, for many years pres- 
ident of the Federation, as follows : " The Knights admitted 
any one to membership . . . ; the Federation confines mem- 
bership to workingmen, not admitting even farmers who are 
employers of labor on their farms. The Knights were a 
centralized society based on lodges established by the central 
union; the Federation is based on its unions' individuality. 
But chief of all, the Knights assumed that organization of all 
classes of workers in one union in each locality would bring 
about the best results, while the Federation realized that the 
organization of each trade in its particular union and the 
affiliation of all unions in a comprehensive federation was 
sure to strengthen each and bring advantage to all." The 
objects of the Federation are: to secure legislation in the 
interest of the working masses ; to encourage the sale of union- 
labeled goods ; to influence public opinion by peaceful and 
legal methods in favor of organized labor ; and to aid and en- 
courage the labor press of America. The Federation seemed 
to meet the needs of the workingmen and it saw its mem- 
bership grow from 262,000 in 1881 to more than 2,000,000 in 
1914. The largest union affiliated with the Federation had a 
membership in 191 2 of over 200,000. 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 521 

169. THE ELECTION OF GROVER CLEVELAND. 

Although labor organizations flourished while Arthur was The 
President, there were few labor disturbances, for the country dentiai 

. ' 1 . Candi- 

was prosperous and workingmen had but few complaints, dates 
And the affairs of the country were well and wisely admin- i884 
istered under Arthur's administration. But Arthur reaped no 
political advantage from the favorable condition of things. 
He failed to secure the support and confidence of his party, 
and when the Republicans made their nomination for Pres- 
ident in 1884 their choice fell upon James G. Blaine of Maine. 
Blaine was one of the most brilliant men of his time and 
with the rank and file of his party he was a popular idol. 
But in 1884 there were many Republicans who felt that their 
party had become corrupt and dishonest and who demanded 
that it reform its ways. These reformers — Independents as 
they called themselves. Mugwumps as they were called in 
derision by others — refused to support the Plumed Knight — 
as Blaine was called — on the ground that his record was 
bad and that he could not be trusted to put down corruption. 
The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland of New York 
and a short time after his nomination a convention of Inde- 
pendent Republicans indorsed his candidacy as a rebuke to 
" increasing public corruption and the want of official in- 
tegrity in the highest trusts of government." The Prohibi- 
tionists named John P. St. John of Kansas as their candi- 
date. The Equal Rights party, which demanded the suffrage 
for women, nominated Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, a woman 
lawyer of Washington. 

Again the campaign was lacking in well-defined issues. On The 
the all-important subject of the tariff the two great parties paign 
were even closer together than they were in 1880. The Re- issi 
publicans in 1884 declared for a tariff " not for revenue only, 
but to afford security to our domestic interests and protection 
to the rights and wages of the laborers." The Democrats aban- 
doned the demand made four years before for tariff for 
revenue only and were content to advocate a tariff which 



522 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

" would not injure any domestic industry but rather promote 
their healthy growth, without depriving American labor of 
the ability to compete successfully with foreign labor.'' In 
other words, the Republicans in 1884 were in favor of a 
protective tarifif and the Democrats were not opposed to one. 
Since there was no great principle to contend for, the cam- 
paign degenerated into one of personalities and abuse, and 
no party contest was ever conducted with less regard to decency 
and good manners. The Republicans fought earnestly to re- 
tain the power which they had held so long, but in vain. 
When the official count was ended it was found that Cleve- 
land had 219 electoral votes and Blaine 182. The election, 
however, was extremely close. A majority of 1,149 votes in 
New York threw the 36 electoral votes of that State to Cleve- 
land and gave him the Presidency. 
The Although no great public question was definitely settled in 

of the the election of 1884, the contest, nevertheless, was one of the 

Election 

Utmost significance. By electing Cleveland the voters of the 
country not only broke the power, temporarily at least, of 
the great party that seemed to be well-nigh invincible, but they 
bestowed power upon a party that had its greatest strength 
in the South and that was largely controlled by Southern in- 
fluence. This was an expression of confidence which meant 
that Northern men were no longer afraid to have Southern 
men as leaders in the councils of the nation. The election of 
Cleveland, therefore, had the effect of drawing the North and 
South together and causing the two sections to deal with 
each other in a spirit of friendship and mutual good-will. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR SPECIAL 
WORK 

1. President Hayes and the South: Sparks, 84-102; Andrews, 225- 
228. 

2. Civil Service evils: Sparks, 154-164; Andrews, 99, 243-247, 336- 

341- 

3. The assassination of Garfield: Halsey X, 27-35; Andrews, 329- 

333- 

4. The emergence of the labor problems : Bogart, 472-485. 



EIGHT YEARS OF WONDROUS GROWTH 



5-^3 



5. The Far West: Sparks, 251-264. 

6. Educational development : Dexter, 223-340. 

7. The invention of the telephone and electric light: Halsey X, 3-18. 

8. Henry W. Grady on the New South : Harding, 489-500. 

9. The Blaine-Cleveland campaign : Sparks, 305-326. 

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1877, 1883. 1884. 

11. Give an account of the methods by which negro suffrage in the 
South has been restricted. Who were the "half-breeds"? the "stal- 
warts"? the " holier-than-thou's "? Give an account of the " Murchi- 
son Letter." Tell the story of the Greely and Jcannclte Expeditions. ^ 

12. The Growth of Urban Population: — The rapidity with which 
urban population has grown is shown in the following table which 
gives the total population of all places of 8,000 inhabitants or more 
from the earliest to the latest census : 



Census 
Year 



1790 
1800 
1810 
1820 
1830 
1840 
1850 
i860 
1870 
1880 
T890 
1900 
1910 



Urban 
Population 



131,472 
210,373 
356,920 

475,175 
864,509 

1,433.994 

2,897,566 

5,072,256 

8,071,875 

11,450,894 

18,327,987 

25,142.978 



Number 

of 
Places 



6 

6 

II 

13 
26 

44 
85 
141 
226 
291 
449 
556 
778 



Per cent. 

of total 

population 



3-3 

4.0 

4.9 

4.9 

6.7 

8.5 

12.5 

16.1 

20.9 

22.8 

29.1 

33-T 
38.8 



1 These expeditions inspired Robert E. Peary to engage in Arctic explorationr 
with the result that in September 1909, after a search of more than twenty years, 
he could announce to the world that on April 6, 1909, he had discovered the 
North Pole. 



XLIII 

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 

(1885-1897) 

The return of the Democrats to power strengthened the bonds of 
friendship between the North and South, but otherwise the large life 
of the nation was but slightly affected by the change in party con- 
trol. The forces that ruled the nation now were industrial rather 
than political. The overshadowing fact of the period between the 
inauguration of Cleveland and the opening of the twentieth century 
was that the "captains of industry" by combining their forces were 
achieving a concentration of wealth unparalleled in history. The 
underlying theme, therefore, of American history during the closing 
years of the nineteenth century is the growth of corporate power. 
This power was so radically different from anything that existed 
before that the period (1885-1897), covered by this chapter, may be 
regarded as the beginning of a new industrial era. 

170. THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE; INDUSTRIAL 
UNREST. 

cieve- The first problem which confronted President Cleveland 

and related to the civil service. Should he carry out the Civil 

Merit Service Law in letter and in spirit, making merit the test of 

holding office, or should he adopt the Jacksonian maxim, " to 
the victor belong the spoils " and turn the Republicans out of 
office as fast as he legally could? His party associates w^ere 
hungry for office and they urged him to make a clean sweep. 
But Cleveland before his inauguration had given the country 
to understand that he would not make sweeping changes in 
the civil service, and when he assumed the reins of govern- 
ment he proved to be friendly to the merit system. Still there 
were in the federal service many officers who were " offensive 
partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party man- 
agement." These Cleveland regarded as having " forfeited 

524 



System 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 



525 



all just claims to retenti6n " and they were speedily removed. 
Cleveland's administration of the offices was not all that ardent 
civil service reformers desired, yet 
he did much for the merit system 
and he was friendly to it when it 
sorely needed a friend. 

During the entire period of the 
first Cleveland administration the 
Senate was Republican. It was 
impossible, therefore, that there 
could be any important legislation 
concerning which there might be a 
sharp difference of opinion be- 
tween the two parties. Never- 
theless, several measures of a 
non-partisan character were en- 
acted. In 1886 the Presidential Succession Act was passed 




Copr. 1903, Rockwood, UJth St., N. Y. 

Grover Cleveland. 



This law provides that if for any reason neither the President Presi^^ 
nor the Vice-President can discharge the duties of the presi- succcb- 
dential office, members of the President's cabinet shall succeed Acts 
to the Presidency in the following order : ( i ) The Secretary 
of State; (2) the Secretary of the Treasury; (3) the Secretary 
of War; (4) the Attorney-General; (5) the Post-Master 
General; (6) the Secretary of the Navy; (7) the Secretary of 
the Interior. The one succeeding to the Presidency serves 
during the remainder of the four years. With this statute on 
the books it was highly improbable that an emergency would 
arise which would leave the country without a President for 
a single day.^ Another act passed in 1886 provided for 
an increase of the navy. It authorized the building of a The 
battleship (the Texas), an armored cruiser (the Maine), and 
a protected cruiser (the Baltimore). This rehabihtation of 
the navy was sadly needed for in his report William C. 

\The Electoral Count Act — In 1887, Congress, in order to avoid such trouble 
as arose in 1876 over the counting of the electoral vote, passed an act providing 
that in the future each State should determine for itself the manner in which its 
electoral vote should be counted and that the certificate of a State announcing the 
result of the vote cast by its electors should be accepted as final. 



Navy 



526 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

Whitney, the Secretary of the Navy, stated that although 
$75,000,000 had been spent on the navy between 1868 and 
1886 the money had been practically thrown away. " It is 
questionable," he said, " whether we have a single naval vessel 
finished ^ and afloat at the present time that could encounter 
the ships of any important Power — a single vessel that has 
either the necessary armor for protection, speed for escape, or 
weapons for defense." 
The , But by far the most important measure of the first Cleve- 

Regula- ... 

tion land admmistration was the act regulating commerce. We 

of Inter- ^n i • , • 

state saw (p. 496) that m the seventies several States in the West 

Com- \i 1^ / 

merce enacted laws regulating the charges made by railroads. But 
a State could only regulate the business carried on by the 
railroads wholly within its boundaries. Business carried on 
between points in different States would have to be regulated 
by Congress (47) if it were regulated at all. Now it 
was perfectly clear that the regulation of interstate commerce 
was as necessary as the regulation of intrastate commerce. 
As early as 1873 railroads doing an interstate business had 
formed the habit of granting special privileges to favored in- 
dividuals, to particular corporations, and to particular lo- 
calities. " We well know," said a responsible observer, " that 
it is their (the railroads') habit to break down certain localities 
and to build up others, and to monopolize certain business by 
means of the numerous corporations which they own and 
control." By 1879 petitions were pouring in upon Congress 
to correct the evils of interstate commerce. But the rail- 
roads were powerful and were able to secure a protracted and 
shameful delay. At last the people of the West and South 
in an angry mood demanded that Congress take action. Ac- 
cordingly, in 1887 Congress responded to the demand and 
The enacted an interstate commerce law providing for the appoint- 

state ment by the President of an Interstate Commerce Commission 

merce consisting of five members. The Commission was given power 

to compel railroad officers to produce their books and testify" 



Commis 
Bion 



1 .\ policy for increasing the navy was bej^un during tiie administration 
Ar'.luir, l)ut liltle had been done at the time Whitney made his report. 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 527 

to take notice of violations of the law and order the violator 
to desist from his illegal acts and fine him if he did not ; 
to provide a uniform system of railway accounting; and to 
obtain from each road an annual report of its operations and 
finances. The act creating the commission declared that 
freight and passenger rates should be just and reasonable; 
that there should be no discriminations between persons and 
localities ; that there should be proper facilities for the inter- 
change of traffic between connecting lines ; that free inter- 
state passes should not be issued ; and that railroads should 
print and make public their freight and passenger rates. The 
language of the statute was so indefinite and vague that a 
member of the House of Representatives was led to assert on 
the floor while the bill was upon its passage that it would 
take five years to ascertain precisely what the powers of the 
Commission were. As a matter of fact it took ten years to 
determine what these powers were, and when the question was 
at last settled (in 1897) ^^y ^'^^ courts, it was found that Con- 
gress had not given the Commission power to fix effectively 
the rates that the railroads should charge. The interstate 
commerce law of 1887 was full of defects but it was the first 
effort of Congress to regulate interstate traffic and it was 
a step in the right direction. 

At the time Congress was considering the interests of those Labor 

. . . . . Troubles 

who used the railroads it was also considermg the mterests 
of the employees, of the railroads. In 1886, upon the recom- 
mendation of Mr. Cleveland, a bill was brought in to establish 
a commission of arbitration that should have for its chief 
duty the peaceable settlement of controversies between inter- 
state railroad corporations and their employees. Although 
the bill failed to pass ^ it was a timely measure, for the year 

1 In T898 Congress passed the Erdman Act, which accomplished in part the 
purpose of the arbitration commission proposed by President Cleveland. This act 
authorized the chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission to endeavor to 
bring together the employers and employees of any railroad threatened with a 
strike and if possible effect an immediate and peaceful settlement of the dispute. 
In 191 3 Congress established the Board of Mediation and Conciliation to render 
s'Jch. services as had hitherto been rendered by the Mrdman Act. 



528 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

1886 was one of serious unrest in the labor world. From the 
shipyards of Maine to the railways of Texas and the Far 
West there were strikes and lockouts in nearly every branch 
of industry. In New York City the employees of the street- 
car lines struck and on one day all the lines in both New York 
and Brooklyn were completely tied up. In the labor dis- 
turbances of the year the Knights of Labor were especially 
active, for they were now at the height of their power (p. 520). 
In the summer of 1886 a member of the Knights of Labor 
employed by the Texas Pacific Railroad was discharged for 
what the railroad authorities regarded as a sufficient reason. 
The Knights resented the discharge of the man and demanded 
his reinstatement. When this was refused a strike was or- 
dered and soon six thousand miles of railway were tied up. 
In many places there was violence and loss of property. In 
East St. Louis a squad of deputies fired upon a crowd and 
several persons were killed. The strike lasted for seven weeks, 
but in the end the strikers lost. 
The But the most serious social disturbance of 1886 occurred in 

market Chicago where on the ist of May 40,000 workingmen went 
on a strike, their demand being an eight-hour day. On May 
4th a mass-meeting of the workingmen was held in the Hay- 
market Square and was addressed by some anarchistic lead- 
ers although the meeting itself was not an anarchistic gather- 
ing. One of the speakers denounced all government and 
shouted, " The law is your enemy. We are rebels against it." 
The speakers were so violent in tone that the police felt that 
the meeting ought to be broken up. Accordingly, a battalion 
of nearly 200 policemen marched into the Square and the 
crowd was ordered to disperse. At the moment the order 
was given a pistol was fired as if for a signal and a bomb 
with a lighted fuse was instantly thrown into the ranks 
of the police. The bomb struck the ground, exploded, 
and killed and wounded sixty men. Eight men were ar- 
rested for the crime and tried. Six of them were sentenced 
to death although only four were executed. One committed 
suicide. 



Aflfair 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 529 

The disturbed conditions of the labor world in i386 led to Henry 
a historic municipal campaign in New York City. The work- and the 
ingmen of the metropolis expressed a desire that Henry Tax 
George might lead them in the mayoralty campaign. George 
was the author of Progress and Poverty, a brilliant and power- 
ful book which maintained the doctrine that under existing so- 
cial conditions the rich must necessarily grow richer and the 
poor must necessarily grow poorer. The cause of this, accord- 
ing to George, is to be found in the private ownership of land. 
The remedy proposed was the single tax ; all revenues, federal, 
State, and local, were to be raised from a single tax imposed 
on land. Such a tax was held to be equitable and just on 
the ground that the value of land consists chiefly of an en- 
hanced increment which has been created not by the exertions 
of the land-holder but by the operation of social forces. 
George responded to the wishes of the workingmen and be- 
came a candidate for mayor, A. S. Hewitt being the Demo- 
cratic candidate, and Theodore Roosevelt the Republican candi- 
date. Although Hewitt was elected, George received a tre- 
mendous vote, polling 68,000 out of a total of 219,000. 
That such a heavy vote should be cast in favor of such a 
radical cause made a profound impression upon the public 
mind. 

Although Cleveland could not secure important legislation cieve- 
because of the Republican opposition in the Senate he never- Tariff 
theless urged upon Congress the necessity for reforms and ^f^^^*^^ 

1887 

he did so in a vigorous manner. On the subject of tariff 
reform he was particularly bold and aggressive. In December 
1887, he transmitted to Congress a message wholly devoted 
to the subject of tariff. The text of the message was that the 
tariff duties which were being collected were largely in excess 
of the needs of the government. A surplus of nearly $140,- 
000,000, the President estimated, would soon be heaped up in 
the Treasury. For this surplus there was no outlet except 
in useless or extravagant expenditures and these he would not 
countenance. His remedy for reducing the surplus was to 
reform the existing tariff laws which were denounced as 



530 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Election 
of 
1888 



" the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary 
taxation." At the close of his message the President said : 
" Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be im- 
proved by dwelling upon the themes of Protection and r>ee 
Trade. ... It is a condition which confronts us, not a 
theory." 

This message was the most straightforward utterance about 
the tariff that had been made for many a year. But it was an 
utterance fraught with great political danger, for it was sure 
to be construed by the Republicans as a direct attack upon the 
policy of protection. The boldness of the message frightened 
the Democratic leaders, yet they stood by the President. In 
1888 Cleveland was nominated unanimously and by acclama- 
tion and his message in regard to the tariff was approved. 
The Republicans entered into the campaign in a hopeful spirit 
for they felt that the Democrats had given them an issue upon 
which they could win. They nominated Benjamin Harrison 
of Indiana and declared in their platform in favor of the 
American system of protection and against its destruction as 
proposed by Cleveland and his party. " They serve," said the 
platform, " the interests of Europe ; we will support the in- 
terests of America. We accept the issue and confidently ap- 
peal to the people for their judgment. The protective sys- 
tem must be maintained." In the campaign the Republicans 
made an almost desperate appeal to the protected interests, 
especially to the workingmen in the factories, and their 
appeal was successful. Harrison received a majority of the 
electoral votes, although Cleveland polled the larger popular 
vote. 



The 

New • 
North- 
west 



171. THE NEW NORTHWEST AND THE NEW SOUTHWEST. 

One of the first things to engage the attention of the Har- 
rison administration was the organization of new States in 
the Far West. It fell to the lot of President Harrison to pro- 
claim the admission of more new States than were ever ad- 
mitted during the administration of any other President. The 
rapid development of the Western country was due chiefly to 




25 50 

Englibh Statute Miles 
States admitted before the Civil War: 
States admitted during and after the Civil War: 
Indian Reservations at the close of 1909 



I THE M.-N. WORKS 







,si^ 



YanUvot 



,. « K. A Fremont \ pes ^l"^"*^* 
TVT V B B f ^<=^=S>A I 




' M I /N~~GU'.^ r 
itted 189p V? ■ 

^-^ ^^''e TS! E » " VnoCT 

j^iawlins.^/^ I ^---n:W admitted 1867 

^Denver ^^j ^\^^-^l=:^^^f'' ° 



;, Colorado Sprs 
R |a D O I 



'N 



Ore! 



LBend^ 




pueblo IsaNTA ^^ /^- ^^ 

admitted 1876 / M'-*""''" ^^ ~\\ai^*''_!!!, 

W I ^vTrinidad 




%dntaiTe 



\ V^I«/^ jj^AlbuquerqueV 






N E w// M E xl I q O I 
admitted 1^12 S^ | 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 



531 




Benjamin Harrison. 



the influence of the transcontinental railroads which were com- 
pleted in the early eighties (p. 511). Within seven years after 
the completion of the Northern Pacific (p. i;io) five new The 

Sakotas 

States were organized in the Northwest and were admitted into 
the Union. Farmers settled Da- 
kota so rapidly that some counties 
with scarcely an inhabitant at the 
beginning of the summer were well 
populated at the ertd of the year. 
In 1889 the great Territory of Da- 
kota (p. 411) was divided and 
erected into two States — North 
Dakota and South Dakota — which 
came into the Union on the same 
day. The Dakotas with their broad 
bonanza farms soon took high rank 
as wheat-growing States. In less 
than a week after the Dakotas were 
admitted Montana came into the Union. Here was a new Montana 
State with a grazing area as large as Illinois, a mining area 
as large as Ohio, and a farming area as large as Pennsyl- 
vania. Three days after the admission of Montana the ter- 
ritory of Washington (p. 412) became a State. The growth Waswng- 

• ^ ton 

of Washmgton had been slow but when the railroad came to 

develop its natural resources, its forests and mines and graz- 
ing-lands, it began to grow at a startling rate. Tacoma was 
transformed from a village in 1880 into a city of 36,000 in 
1890, while the growth of Seattle and Spokane were even 
greater. The political development of the new Northwest 
was completed in 1890 when Idaho was admitted. Idaho 

While the Northwest was developing in this rapid manner, Wyoming 
the country traversed by the Union Pacific continued 
fill up with people. By 1890 Wyoming had a population 
of more than 60,000 and in that year it was admitted into 
the Union. Utah (p. 366) by this time had a population more 
than three times as great as that of Wyoming but it was pre- 
vented from entering the Union because the Mormons per- 



and 
to Utah 



532 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

mitted the custom of polygamy. In 1893 polygamy was 
abolished by an act of Congress and three years later Utah, 
after long waiting, was admitted as a State. 
The But while the Northwest and the Central West were growing 

South- so rapidly, the Southwest also was responding to the influence 
of the transcontinental lines. In the eighties northern and 
western Texas were traversed by railroads and great vacant 
areas of the " Lone Star " State began to fill with people. San 
Antonio, Fort Worth, and Dallas soon became important inland 
centers of trade. The railroad also entered the Indian Terri- 
tory (p. 321) and with its coming many pale faces found their 
way into the redman's country. In 1889 the western portion 
of the so-called Indian Territory, known as Oklahoma, was 
thrown open to settlement by President Harrison. A horde of 
eager pioneers was already on the border waiting for the sig- 
nal when it would be lawful to enter upon the newly-opened 
lands. The signal was given by the blast of a bugle at twelve 
o'clock noon April 22, and a wild rush across the borders be- 
gan. " Men on horseback and afoot, in every conceivable 
vehicle, sought homes with the utmost speed and before night- 
fall town sites were laid out for several thousand inhabitants 
each." In 1890 Oklahoma was organized as a regular terri- 
tory. 
Indian In the rapid peopling of the West many problems connected 

lema with the Indians had to be solved. Many wars had to be fought 

and in the engagements scores of officers and hundreds of men 
lost their lives. Often these conflicts were due to the white 
man's desire for the redman's land. " The Indians," said Pres- 
ident Hayes in 1877, " have been driven from place to place. 
... In many instances, when they had settled down upon lands 
assigned to them by compact and begun to support themselves 
by their own labor, they were rudely jostled off and thrust 
into the wilderness again. Many, if not most, of our Indian 
wars have had their origin in broken promises and acts of 
injustice on our part." But in time a more generous and hu- 
The mane Indian policy was adopted. In 1887 the Dawes Bill pro- 

BiU \ided that the Indians mi^^ht receive allotments of land to be 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 533 

held as by private ownership, and further provided that In- 
dians holding land in this manner should be gTanted the right 
of citizenship. Under this law more than 150.000 Indians 
subsequently became citizens of the United States. The fed- 
eral government also, during the administrations of Cleveland 
and Harrison, began to give greater attention to the Indians on 
the reservations. It made liberal appropriations for the edu- 
cation of Indian youths on the reservations and it provided 
agencies for protecting the Indian against the injustice and 
rapacity of the white man. And this liberal policy has been 
continued to our own day. 

172. THE SURPLUS, THE TARIFF, AND THE TRUSTS. 
Besides admitting new States and settling questions of The 

, TT • 1 • • • 11 1 Surplus 

Indian policy the Harrison administration was called upon to and the 

. . , , , .-^ , , Billion 

take action in respect to the surplus, the tariit, and the trusts. Dollar 

Congress 

These questions could be dealt with freely, for Congress at 
the opening of the Harrison administration was Republican in 
both branches. The problem of the surplus, which gave 
Cleveland so much anxiety, was solved effectually during the 
Harrison administration by the simple expedient of making 
generous expenditures. Money was appropriated in sums 
larger than was ever before known. Large sums were spent 
in coast defenses, rivers, harbors, and lighthouses ; many ves- 
sels were added to the navy ; small cities were provided with 
federal buildings ; a ship-subsidy bill was passed. The amount 
appropriated for soldiers' pensions was nearly double, the annual 
disbursement increasing during Harrison's term from $88,000,- 
000 to $159,000,000. Altogether the expenditure of Har- 
rison's first Congress amounted to about one billion dollars. 

The tariff question was approached in a confident spirit for The 
the Republicans regarded their restoration to power in 1889 ley 
as a mandate from the people not merely to maintain the pro- 
tective principle but to carry it further than it had ever been 
carried before. Accordingly, in 1890 Congress passed the 
McKinley Bill. This law raised the tariff duties on a great 
number of articles and placed duties on many articles that 



534 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

had been on the free list. As one means of reducing- the sur- 
plus it placed duties on some commodities so high that they 
could not possibly be imported with profit and could not there- 
fore yield any revenue. The duties were especially high upon 
articles of everyday use, on cotton and woolen goods, on iron 
and steel and glassware, and on many kinds of food. The 
duty on sugar was reduced from three and a half cents to one 
half a cent a pound, but compensation was accorded the do- 
mestic producers of sugar by granting them a bounty of two 
cents a pound. The bill recognized the principle of reciprocity 
by empowering the President to levy duties by proclamation on 
sugar, molasses, tea, coffee, and hides coming from a country 
which in his judgment levied unjust or unreasonable duties on 
our commodities. It was hoped by the framers of the bill that 
it would stimulate foreign trade, but James G. Blaine, the Sec- 
retary of State under Harrison, had no such hopes. " There 
is not," he said, " a section or line in the entire bill that will 
open the market for another bushel of wheat or another bar- 
rel of pork." It was charged by the Democrats that the 
proposed tariff would raise prices but the friends of protec- 
tion were now not afraid of high prices. Said McKinley, 
" I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a word of hope ; 
it is not a word of cheer ; it is not a word of inspiration ! It 
is the badge of poverty ; it is the signal of distress. . . . Cheap 
merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean a cheap 
. country." The bill became a law in October 1890, thirty days 
before the Congressional election of that year. 
The As a solution for the trust problem Congress in 1890 

of passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The purpose of this 

tion law was to check the onward march of giant industrial com- 

binations — trusts they were generally called — that were 
stifling competition and establishing monopoly in many lines 
of business. The trust made its appearance after the War. 
Before the War, it is true, many very large establishments had 
been built up under the workings of the factory system 
(p. 334) but competition as late as i860 was still the law and 
the life of trade. Any concern that managed its affairs wisely 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 535 

and produced goods that were in demand could hope for suc- 
cess, for it entered the market on an equal footing with its 
competitors. But after the War industrial conditions became 
more and more unfavorable to competition. With the light- 
ning express to carry him from place to place and with the 
telegraph and telephone to keep him in touch with all parts 
of the country, the business man in the eighties could strike 
a hundred blows at his competitor for one he could strike in 
the forties. After the War conditions were especially fa- 
vorable to large establishments and to the production of goods 
on a large scale. The number of iron- and steel-mills de- 
creased by a third between 1880 and 1890 but the output of 
the mills increased by one-half. The number of establish- 
ments engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements 
fell from 1943 in 1880 to 910 in 1890, although the capital in- 
vested was more than doubled in the interval. In the leather 
industry three-fourths of the establishments disappeared in 
eight years while the value of leather manufactures increased 
fivefold. And thus it was in almost every branch of in- 
dustry; there was concentration all along the line. This con- The 
centration meant of course the triumph of the large producer of 
for he could sell at a small profit and still prosper, whereas tion 
if the small producer attempted to sell at the same small 
profit he would be ruined. Moreover, concentration was 
hastened by reason of the unjust and unfair conduct of busi- 
ness men. For example, the Standard Oil Company, the 
greatest of the oil-refining concerns, profited in its early days 
enormously by reason of the special favors it received from 
the railroads. From the railroads it received rebates and 
drawbacks ; it was given a better service than was given to its 
competitors ; it had rates manipulated for its own purpose ; 
it received secret information as to the business of its com- 
petitors. As a result of these favors the Standard Oil Com- 
pany ^ was able to beat down its rivals and establish a virtual 

1 This company was chartered in Ohio in 1870 for the purpose of manufactur- 
ing illuminating oil from petroleum. The petroleum industry as we know it to- 
day may be said to have had its beginning in 1859 wh;n the first petroleum well 



536 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

monopoly in the oil business. Thus by 1880 the forces at 
work in the industrial world were all leading toward con- 
centration and monopoly. 
The About 1880 the great corporations began to devise methods 

T^us't of protecting themselves against the ravages of competition, 

1890 for they too carried on a destructive competitive warfare with 

each other. Their first efforts to check competition consisted 
in the formation of pools: several competitors would agree 
upon a scale of prices and upon the amount of goods that 
each separate competitor was to produce and sell. Under this 
arrangement there was to be no competition in prices. The 
buyer, if he bought from a company belonging to the pool, 
would have to pay the price fixed by the pool. Here plainly 
was an attempt to establish monopoly ^ and since monopoly 
has no place in American law, the pool was speedily de- 
clared (in 1882) illegal and was driven from the industrial 
world. But the corporations did not abandon their at- 
tempts to escape competition. They devised a new form of 
combination which came to be known generally as a trust, 
but which was simply a giant corporation consisting of a 
number of corporations whose separate interests were merged 
and blended into one concern. But trusts also were soon 
brought under the ban of the law. In 1890 Congress, as- 
serting its power to regulate interstate commerce, declared : 
" Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- 
wise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among 
the several States or with foreign nations, is hereby declared 
illegal. Every person who shall monopolize or attempt to 
monopolize or combine or conspire with any other person or 
persons to monopolize any part of the trade or conmierce 

was sunk near Titusville, Pennsylvania. Soon after this, wells were bored in 
Ohio and Indiana, and later in West Virginia, Kansas, Texas, California, and else- 
where. Scores of companies engaged in the petroleum business, but the Standard 
Oil Company, directed chiefly by John D. Rockefeller, had at an early date left 
all its competitors far in the rear. The property of the Standard Oil Company in 
1870 was valued at $1,000,000; in 1900 it was valued at $500,000,000. 

1 A monopoly, according to strict legal definition, is an exclusive privilege to 
deal in or control the sale of certain things. The only legal monopoly is that 
which is cranted. by Congress to authors and inventors (52). 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 537 

among the several States or with foreign nations shall be 
guilty of a misdemeanor." Such was the Sherman Anti- 
Trust Law which statesmen in 1890 hoped would restore com- 
petition and check the growth of corporate power. 

The Anti-Trust Act met with general approval, but the Mc- ^^^^^^j^^jj 
Kinley tariff was visited with a storm of popular condemna- of ^^ 
tion. In the Congressional election of 1890 the Democrats 
came out squarely against the new tariff law with the result 
that they elected 235 members to Congress while the Republi- 
cans elected only 88. Two years later in the presidential 
election the Democrats again came out strongly against pro- 
tection, denouncing it as " a fraud, a robbery of the great 
majority of the American people for the benefit of the few.'' 
Upon this explicit platform they nominated ex-President 
Cleveland as their candidate. The Republicans in 1892 re- 
nominated President Harrison and reaffirmed strongly the 
doctrine of protection. The National People's party — the 
Populists — nominated James B. Weaver of Iowa and de- 
clared for the free coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, 
postal savings banks, and the government ownership of 
railroads. The campaign was in the main a quiet one and 
turned on the issue of protection. The result was a sweeping 
victory for the Democrats.^ Cleveland received 277 electoral 
votes, Harrison 145, and Weaver 22. 



173. FOUR YEARS OF FINANCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL DE- 
PRESSION (1893-1897). 

When Cleveland entered upon his second term (March 4, condi- 

,. . . . tion 

1893) he found the affairs of the national Treasury in a most of the 

-^^ . . . ^ National 

unsatisfactory condition. In 1890 Congress had passed the Treasury 

1 The Democrats profited somewhat by the occurrence of several labor riots. 
At Homestead, a suburb of Pittsburgh, the emploj'ees of the Carnegie Steel Com- 
pany in the course of a strike came into conflict with the Pinkerton detectives 
■who were hired to protect the property of the company. Both the Pinkerton men 
and the workingmen were well armed and for several days there was actual war- 
fare. Seven detectives and eleven workingmen were killed. That the Pinkerton 
men should be employed to shoot down workingmen created a bitter feeling 
among the laboring classes and on election day many votes were given to the 
Democrats simply to rebuke the party in power. 



538 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

so-called Sherman Law which provided that the government 
should purchase each month 4,500,000 ounces of silver at the 
market price and pay for the silver with treasury notes re- 
deemable either in gold or in silver as the Secretary of the 
Treasury might decide. By 1893 the treasury notes issued 
under this law amounted to nearly $150,000,000 and the 
amount was increasing all the time. In addition to these 
treasury notes there were $346,000,000 of greenbacks (p. 468) 
which were also redeemable in gold. Here were nearly $500,- 
000,000 in paper money, greenbacks, and treasury notes to- 
gether, and a gold reserve of only $100,000,000 available for 
redemption purposes. It is true the Secretary of the Treasury 
could have redeemed the treasury notes in silver but he chose 
to maintain the gold standard and redeem both greenbacks 
and treasury notes in gold. In June 1893 the gold reserve 
fell below $100,000,000. So, while the volume of treasury 
notes was increasing, the redemption fund was decreasing. 
Cleveland determined that this state of things should not 
continue. He called Congress in extra session and by dint 
of executive pressure he succeeded in securing the repeal of 
the purchasing clause of the Sherman Act ; no more silver was 
to be bought and accordingly no more treasury notes with 
which to pay for the silver were to be issued. 
The But stopping the purchase of the silver did not bring the 

Issues desired relief. Notes continued to be presented to the treas- 
ury for redemption and the gold reserve continued to fall. 
Moreover the revenues of the government were decreasing 
and the gold reserve had to be drawn upon not only for pur- 
poses of redemption but also for the payment of ordinary 
expenses. In January 1894 the reserve was less than $65,- 
000,000. The Secretary of the Treasury now began to sell 
bonds (borrow money) in order to secure enough gold to 
bring the reserve up to the $100,000,000 mark. But no 
^/ ^sooner was the fresh supply of gold obtained than it was 
— drawn out again by fresh redemption of notes, for it must 
be remembered that when the notes were redeemed they were 
at once put in circulation again and could be presented again 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 539 

for redemption (p. 497). The redemption process, therefore, 
was Hke the working of an endless chain. In November the 
reserve had fallen to $59,000,000. Accordingly another bond 
issue of $50,000,000 was necessary. Still the endless chain con- 
tinued to operate. Finally the banking houses of J. P. Mor- 
gan and August Belmont agreed to furnish the government with 
a certain amount of gold in exchange for bonds for which they 
paid a price considerably lower than the current market price, 
and as a part of the contract they agreed to use their influ- 
ence to protect the Treasury from further withdrawals of 
gold. This transaction was bitterly resented by the free sil- 
ver men of the West who contended that the drain upon the 
Treasury could be stopped simply by using silver for purposes 
of redemption and who insisted that it ought to be stopped in 
this manner. The agreement entered into with the banking 
houses brought a temporary relief to the Treasury. Never- 
theless, one more issue of the bonds was necessary. This time 
(January 1896) the sale of the bonds was thrown open to the 
public. The Treasury now ceased to suffer by reason of ex- 
cessive withdrawals from the gold reserve. " Wall Street 
had found that the siphon-process could no longer be made a 
source of private gain." In all, bonds to the amount of 
$262,000,000 were issued to maintain the gold standard. 

At the time the national finances were suffering such a se- The 

Panic 

vere strani the country was passing through one of the worst of 
panics in our history. The panic, which began in 1893 and 
lasted for several years, extended to almost every department 
of industrial and commercial life. Banks failed, railroads 
were thrown into the hands of receivers, factories closed, 
tlx)usands of merchants failed. The want and distress led 
to many strikes and riots. During the winter of 1893-1894 
" armies of the unemployed " were organized in different parts 
of the country with the purpose of marching upon Washing- 
ton and demanding remedial measures from Congress. One 
of these armies led by J. S. Coxey marched from Massillon, coxey's 
Ohio, to Washington with the purpose of presenting a peti- 
tion to Congress. But Coxey was arrested for " trespassing 



S40 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Pullman 

Car 

£:ti'ike 



Oil the grass " on the Capitol lawn and his " army " of a few 
do2en men dwindled away. But the most serious disturh- 
ance during this panic was in Chicago where in May 1894 
the employees of the Pullman Car Company struck against a 

WBI^KmmmmaBmm reduction of wages/ Un- 
.:,.-. ■■■ ""^ ^jgj. ^i^g leadership of Eu- 
gene V. Debs the members 
of the American Railway 
Union numbering about 
150,000 men, espoused the 
cause of the Pullman em- 
ployees and demanded that 
the dispute be submitted to 
arbitration. When this de- 
mand was refused, the rail- 
road employees voted that 
they would handle no 
trains having Pullman 
cars and this led to a 
strike of railroads in 
twenty-seven States. In 
Chicago, the storm-center of the strike, mobs gathered 
in the freight-yards and hundreds of cars were burned. 
The Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, delayed in 
calling out the militia to suppress the disorder. But when 
the post-office department complained that the mails were be- 
ing obstructed and when it was shown that interstate com- 
merce was being interfered with. President Cleveland or- 
dered regular troops to the scene of the disturbance. Gov- 
ernor Altgeld protested against the presence of the Federal 
troops on the ground that Illinois was able to take care of 
itself. But Cleveland persisted in sending the troops and 

1 The strike occurred just after the closing of the World's Columbian Exposi- 
tion, which was opened at Chicago in May 1893, by President Cleveland. This 
Exposition was held to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the dis- 
covery of America by Columbus. The buildings of the Exposition occupied 660 
acres of ground. The building devoted to manufactures and liberal arts covered 
25 aces. The total cost of the Exposition was nearly $40,000,000. The number 
oi paid admissions was over 22,000,000. 




Administration Building, Columbian 
Exposition, 1893. 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 541 

soon after their arrival the rioting ceased and the strike came 
to an end. 

While the President was dealing with the Chicago strikers The 

. , „ , Wilson 

he was also having a controversy with Congress over the Tariff 

tariff. He desired a revision of the tariff that would carry 
out the promises of the platform upon which he was elected. 
But the protective system had many friends among the Demo- 
crats of Congress and only a timid, half-hearted revision was 
made. After a long debate the Wilson Act was passed. This 
placed wool and lumber on the free list, reduced the duties 
on some commodities and raised them on others, reimposed a 
tax on sugar, and provided for an income tax of 2 per cent, 
on all incomes over $4,000. The President regarded the bill 
as an act of party perfidy and party dishonor. " The livery," 
he wrote, " of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and 
worn in the service of Republican protection." He was so 
displeased with the bill that he would not sign it but allowed 
it to become a law without his signature (41). 

The Wilson tariff proved to be an ill-fated measure. It The 

r-r • 11 • 1 • 1 1 • Failure 

went into effect at a time when the panic which began in of the 

. . , . ,. , , . , , Wilson 

1893 was in its worst stages but it did nothing to remedy the Tariff 

hard times. It was intended especially to be a revenue meas- 
ure, yet under its workings the revenue collected was not at 
first sufficient to meet the expenses of government. Its clause 
taxing incomes was tested in the courts and was found (in 
May 1895) by the Supreme Court of the United States to be 
unconstitutional, the objection being that an income tax, in 
the opinion of the Court, is a direct tax and must therefore 
be apportioned among the States according to population (7), 
a condition which the Wilson law did not fulfil. 

In addition to dealing with a serious and disturbed condition The 

. . . Venezue- 

of affairs at home President Cleveland during his second ad- lan 

. Boundary 

ministration was called upon to give his attention to several Dispute 
foreign problems of perplexing nature. Foremost among the 
foreign questions was the Venezuelan boundary dispute. 
There had been a long-standing boundary controversy between 
Vet"e7uela and th^ British colonv of British Guiana, and in 



542 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

1895 it seemed that Great Britain was determined to extend 
the western boundary of British Guiana and thus encroach upon 
the territory of Venezuela. In the opinion of Cleveland and 
of his Secretary of State, Richard Olney, such an extension 
of British territory would be violative of the Monroe Doc- 
trine. But the British government was disposed to ignore 
the Monroe Doctrine entirely and when our State Depart- 
ment offered its services in securing an arbitration of the dis- 
pute the offers at first were flatly rejected. The brusque at- 
titude of Great Britain aroused our government to an ag- 
gressive and spirited course of action. Secretary Olney in a 
despatch to the English prime minister d^lared that the 
United States is " practically sovereign on this continent " and 
that " it would resent any sequestration of Venezuelan soil 
by Great Britain." President Cleveland in a message to Con- 
gress hinted strongly that if Great Britain extended her 
boundary further than was agreeable to the United States 
the act would be regarded as unfriendly. The message was 
distinctly menacing in tone and there was talk of war. 
Great Britain, however, gracefully yielded and the affair soon 
blew over. A commission was appointed by President Cleve- 
land to inquire into the merits of the controversy and the 
boundary dispute was finally settled (in 1899) by a treaty of 
arbitration. 
Seal- Another foreign question which arose during Cleveland's 

eries second administration related to the seal-fisheries of Alaska. 

The United States claimed that our possession of Alaska gave 
us the exclusive right to the seal-fisheries of the Behring Sea 
and Canadian vessels taking seals in that sea were regarded 
as trespassers and were captured by our revenue cutters. 
This led to a controversy which was settled in 1893 by a 
board of arbitration, the decision of the board being unfavor- 
able to our claims. 

174. THE ELECTION OF 1896. 

By 1896 the Wilson Bill seemed to be discredited, and the 
Republicans felt that they could convince the country once 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 543 

more that a tariff for revenue only was a failure and that the Tlie 

,. , Ti 1 1 • Rcpub- 

protective policy was the true one. -But when the time came ucans 
in 1896 for the Republicans to take their stand upon the issues silver 
of the day they found that it was the silver question and not tion 
the tariff question that would have to be settled. In the West 
and South there were vast numbers of voters who insisted 
that the free coinage of silver should be resumed at the old 
ratio of 16 to i, the ratio which had prevailed from the earliest 
years of the government (p. 230) until the demonetization 
of silver in 1873 (p. 498). When the Republicans held their 
conventions in the spring of 1896, ten out of the forty-five 
State conventions- declared in favor of bi-metallism, that is, 
in favor of the coinage of both gold and silver, while very few 
conventions indeed declared explicitly in favor of a single 
gold standard. Nothwithstanding this diversity of opinion the 
Republicans in the National Convention in 1896 took a de- 
cided stand on the silver question: they nominated William 
McKinley and declared against the free coinage of silver. 
But the declaration caused thirty-four delegates headed by 
Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado to secede from the con- 
vention. 

If the Republican party was split by the silver question the The 
Democratic party was shattered by it. When the Democratic crats 
National Convention met in Chicago in 1896 the free silver silver 
advocates out-numbered the gold men. They promptly se- tion 
cured the adoption of a resolution which demanded " the free 
and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the present 
legal rate of 16 to i without waiting for the aid and consent 
of any other nation." In the debate on this resolution Wil- 
liam J. Bryan of Nebraska made a speech of such power that 
the convention was aroused to a frenzy of enthusiasm. Mr. 
Bryan was but little known at the time and very few had 
thought of him as a presidential candidate. But his remark- 
able eloquence in the convention caused the delegates to turn 
to him as a leader and on the fifth ballot he was nominated 
for the Presidency. The delegates who favored the gold 
standard — about 160 in number — showed their disapproba- 



544 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tion by refusing to vote. Bryan's nomination was indorsed 
l)y the national convention of the People's party whose plat- 
form also declared for the free coinage of silver. After the 
Democratic convention had adjourned a convention of gold 
Democrats organized under the name of the National Demo- 
cratic party, repudiated the action of the Chicago platform 
and nominated John M. Palmer of Illinois for President. 
This nomination, however, w^as not made with the expectation 
of victory; it was niade for the sole purpose of catching the 
votes of Democrats who were opposed to free silver and who 
would not vote the Republican ticket. 
The The campaign of 1896 was one of the most bitter and ex- 

Cam- 
paign citing contests in all our history. The country was stirred to 

1896 its depths by the appeal which was made to the voters. The 

Republicans would gladly have made the tariff the chief issue 
but they were not permitted to do this. Mr. Bryan forced 
the fighting on the silver c|uestion and it became the supreme 
issue. In the campaign the young man — he was barely old 
enough to qualify for the Presidency (87) — surpassed all 
records in the number of speeches made and in the distances 
traveled. Wherever he went he faced large audiences. It 
is estimated that five million persons came within the sound 
of his voice. In giving utterance to the free silver sentiment 
of the country he spoke chiefly for the West, and as far as 
the silver question was concerned the campaign was a contest 
between the East and the West. But there was more than 
the silver question involved in the campaign of 1896. There 
was a vast amount of discontent throughout the country and 
it was chiefly to those who were discontented with industrial 
conditions that the Democrats made their appeal. The Re- 
publicans at first felt confident of victory but they soon real- 
ized that hard fighting was necessary. Under the leadership 
of Marcus A. Hanna of Ohio they conducted what they called 
" a campaign of education." They pictured the disasters that 
would flow from the free coinage of silver : silver being the 
cheaper ^ metal nothing but silver would be used and gold would 

1 TIic market price of the silver nielal in a silver dollar in 1896 was about 69 



BEGINNING OF A NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA 545 

be driven out of circulation; the flood of silver would cause 
prices to rise and as they rose the value of fixed salaries, in- 
surance policies, deposits in saving banks, mortgages, and 
other evidences of debt, would fall ; the substitution of silver 
for gold as a payment of debt would mean repudiation and 
would bring disgrace and dishonor upon the name of the na- 
tion. The campaign of education supplemented by immense 
contributions to the campaign fund carried the day. When 
the bitter combat was over it was found that McKinley had 
received 271 electoral votes and that Bryan had secLrtd 176. 
Of the popular vote McKinley received 7,111,607 while 
Bryan received 6,502,600. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. The regulation of commerce: Forman, 328-342. 

2. "A condition not a theory": Hart IV, 518-520. 

3. The Wilson Tarifif: Halsey X, 88-95. 

4. Labor : Forman, 369-375. 

5. Corporations : Forman, 360-368. 

6. The Columbia World's Fair : Halsey X, 81-87. 

7. The Panic of 1893: Halsey X, 73-80. 

8. Metallic currency: Forman, 311-317. 

9. The election of 1896: Halsey, 108-124; Hart IV, 535-538. 
ID. Dates for the chronological table: 1887, 1890, 1894, i8g6. 

11. For the table of admitted States: North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Montana, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, Utah. 

12. What were the "Blocks of Five"? Describe the Johnstown's 
flood. Name three lai-ge centers of iron and steel manufacture and 
explain the commercial importance of each center. Point out the ad- 
vantages and disadvantages of capitalistic combination : Bogart, 452- 
463. Give a graphic account of the march of Coxey's army; of' the 
Debs' strike. Read in the class "The Opening of the Cherokee Strip": 
Halsey X, 68-72. What is meant by the " Solid South " ? Give an ac- 
count of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

cents; that is, one hundred silver dollars when melted contained enough S'lver 
to buy sixty-nine gold dollars. The Republicans in the campaign contended ttat 
under the plan proposed by the Democrats people would always pay their dfbts 
in silver; if a man owed $100 he would take $69 in gold, buy silver wit?, il, ^tt 
the silver coined into one hundred silver dollars, and pay his debt. The Lercio- 
crats met this contention by asserting that the enormous demand for silver under 
a free coinage law would greatly raise the market value of the white metal. 



XLIV 

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 

For more than a century the United States held an isolated position 
in respect to the other nations of the globe. We desired " peace, 
commerce, and honest friendship" with foreign countries (p. 257), but 
we steadfastly held ourselves aloof from their affairs. In the very 
last years of the nineteenth century this policy of " splendid isola- 
tion " was abandoned. War and an impulse for territorial expansion 
brought us into contact with distant nations and of necessity we 
assumed a responsible and important position among the great powers 
of the world. 

175- THE DINGLEY BILL. 

Although the tariff was not the dominant issue in the elec- 
The tion of 1896, and although the revenues under the Wilson 

Dingley , ^ . ,, . ? . , . , 

Tariff law were rapidly nicreasnig and were almost certani to be 

sufficient in a short time for the needs of the government, 
nevertheless the Republicans decided that a new tariff law 
was necessary. The Wilson law was intended as a revenue 
measure whereas the Republicans explicitly demanded a tariff 
that would not only furnish adequate revenue for the neces- 
sary expenses of the government but would also protect our 
manufacturing industries from foreign competition. Accord- 
ingly, President McKinley after his inauguration (March 4, 
1897) speedily convened Congress in special session for the 
purpose of revising the tariff. The manufacturers clamored 
for a restoration of the high protective duties and in response 
Congress gave the country the Dingley tariff which in regard 
to several important commodities pushed the protective prin- 
ciple further than ever before. The duty on wool was re- 
stored and the rates on sugar, woolen goods, silks, linens, and 

546 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 547 

on many manufactures of iron and steel were increased. The 
principle of reciprocity authorized by the McKinley Bill 
(P- 534) was incorporated into the Dingley Bill although 
nothing of importance in the way of reciprocity was ever ac- 
complished by virtue of the Dingley Act. The tariff of 1897 
remained in force for twelve years and was but slightly 
changed by the tariff which succeeded it. The workings of 
the protective system under the Dingley tariff may be fairly 
well learned from the following table which shows for the year 
1903 the importation value of twelve leading classes of arti- 
cles, the amount of duty collected in each class of articles, and 
the rate of duty : 

Duties Rate of 

Articles Value collected duty 

Sugar $ 64,807,224 $ 63,214,744 97% 

Wool, raw 21,358,030 11,631,041 54% 

Woolen goods 19,302,006 17,564,694 91% 

Cotton goods 51,706,978 27,758,625 53% 

Tobacco 18,298,780 21,892,109 1 19% 

Silk goods 36,047,873 19,276,546 63% 

Iron arid steel goods 33.385,663 12,652,042 2,7% 

Goods made of fibers and 

grasses 41,294,963 15,81 1,703 38% 

Liquors 15,622,835 11,210,497 5i% 

Drugs and dyes 24,162,545 6,604,476 27% 

Stone and chinaware 10,534,041 6,153,463 58% 

Fruits and nuts 12,924,825 5,693,924 44% 



Total $349,445,763 $219,463,864 

The sum collected in 1903 on all dutiable articles was $279,- 
779,228. The above twelve classes of articles, therefore, paid 
more than three fourths of the entire customs revenue. 



176. INTERVENTION IN CUBA: THE SPANISH WAR; 
EXPANSION. 

Congress had hardly finished with the Dingley Bill before Early 
it was called upon to deal with serious questions of foreign Reia- 
policy. In Cuba the government of Spain had lost its con- 



54S 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



"Recon- 

centra- 

tion" 



The 
"Maine* 



trol and was powerless to protect the lives of resident Ameri- 
can citizens or to comply with its treaty obligations. 
Throughout the nineteenth century Cuba was an object of 
interest and concern to the United States, and at times our 
government, in accordance with the desires of the slave-hold- 
ing interests (p. 391), showed a willingness to annex the 
island. Spain, however, continued to hold Cuba although it 
was unhappy under Spanish rule. From 1868 to 1878 Cuba 
was in a state of revolt against Spain, and during these years 
the chaotic condition of affairs on the island affected Ameri- 
can interests so seriously that President Grant considered and 
even threatened intervention. The revolution, however, came 
to an end before intervention was actually necessary. 

In 1895 the Cubans again revolted and again American in- 
terests on the islands began to suffer. Moreover, American 
sympathy was aroused by the cruel measures to which Spain 
resorted in her efforts to crush the insurrection. General 
Weyler, the commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba in 
1896, ordered the Cuban peasants who were in sympathy with 
the rebellion to gather — " reconcentrate themselves " — in the 
towns occupied by the regular troops. In carrying out this 
policy of " reconcentration " hundreds of thousands were 
penned up in towns " like cattle and were compelled to subsist 
under conditions which no cattle could have endured." 
Against such cruelty President McKinley, in June 1897, pro- 
tested in the name of humanity and in the interests of Ameri- 
can citizens who all too frequently were made the victims of 
Weyler's harsh measures. Spain in response promised self- 
government to Cuba. But the rebellion continued and the 
relations between Spain and the United States grew worse 
and worse. In February 1898, the battleship Maine made 
a visit, which was officially declared to be friendly, to Cuban 
waters. On the night of February 15, while the Maine was 
lying in the harbor of Havana, an explosion occurred which 
utterly wrecked her and killed her officers and two hundred 
and fifty-eight of her crew. An examination made by a board 
of naval officers showed that the vessel had been destroyed by 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 549 

ihe explosion of a submarine mine, but the board was unable 
to fix the responsibility upon any person or persons. The peo- 
ple of the United States believed that Spain was responsible 
for the destruction of the Maine and there was a strong de- 
mand for war. President McKinley did not wish war but 
he felt that the time had come for dealing firmly with the 
Cuban situation. So he sent to Congress a message declar- 
ing that on grounds of humanity forcible intervention in Cuba inter- 

^ A -1 /• 1 , • , vention 

was necessary. On April 19, Congress passed resolutions de- in 

Cubsn 

daring (i) that the people of Cuba were free and independ- Affairs 
ent; (2) that it was the duty of the United States to demand, 
and the government of the United States did demand, that 
Spain relinquish authority in the island of Cuba; (3) that the 
President should use the military forces of the United States 
to carry the resolutions into efifect ; (4) that the United States 
did not intend to exercise sovereignty over Cuba but that it 
was its intention to leave the government and control of the 
island to its people. These resolutions of course were equiva- 
lent to a declaration of war and were so imderstood by the 
Spanish government which on , 

April 24 formally declared war j 

against us. 

When the war began, Commo- 
dore (afterward Admiral) George 
Dewey was at Hong Kong with a 
squadron of the American navy. 
On the same day that Spain de- 
clared war Dewey received from 
the government at Washington the 
following cablegram : " War has 
commenced between the United 

States and Spain. Proceed at .^ . , t» 

^ . . . Admiral Dewey. 

once to the Philippine Islands. 

Commence operations at once, particularly against Spanish Manila 
fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy." In obedience 
to these instructions, Dewey on May i attacked a Span- 
ish fleet which was stationed at Manila Bay. In the re- 




550 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Santiago 



PACIFIC 
OCEAN 



markable battle which followed the American shijis were 
scarcely injured at all and not a single American was killed. 
On the Spanish side ten shii)s were destroyed, 381 men were 
killed, and numbers were wounded. J)ewey was soon rein- 
forced by land troops under 
General Merritt and on August 
13 the city of Manila was taken. 
By the time Manila was taken 
the war was virtually over. As 
soon as hostilities were declared, 
the President called for 125,000 
volunteer troops, and before the 
end of May 120,000 recruits had 
been mustered in. The fighting 
in Cuba took place near the city 
of Santiago. On July i. El Ca- 
ney and San Juan Hill, the outer 
defenses of Santiago, were as- 
saulted by the Americans and 
after two days fighting were car- 
ried by storm.^ At the time of 
this fighting a Spanish fleet under Admiral Cervera was lying 
in the harbor of Santiago blockaded by a strong American 
fleet under Admiral Sampson.- When Cervera saw that 
Santiago was doomed he sailed out of the harbor and at- 
tempted to escape, but he was attacked by the American fleet 
and within a few hours his ships were destroyed. In this en- 
gagement the American fleet was directed by Commodore 
Schley, the actual commander (Sampson) being absent though 
not out of sight of the fighting.-"* Soon after the destruction 





BRITISH J,.. N^- •■• .^*' ISLANDS 
lORTM. OORStJO cH' 

^'"'CELEBES SE . 



The Philippines. 



1 In the fight distinguished service was rendered by the Rough Riders, a regi- 
ment made up of cow-boys, hunters, ranchmen, Indians, and college graduates. Ot 
this regiment Dr. Leonard Wood was the colonel and Theodore Roosevelt lieu- 
tenant-colonel. 

- On June 3 Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Ilobson undertook to " bottle up " the 
Spanish fleet within the harbor. He attempted to sink a collier in the narrowest 
place of the channel, but the ship did not sink at exactly the right place. So the 
Spanish were not " bottled up." 

3 The battleship Oregon left San Francisco soon after the outbreak af the war 
and started to join Admiral Sampson's fleet in the West Indies. She made the 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 5Si 

of Cervera's fleet, Santiago surrendered (July 17). On July 
25 General Miles captured Porto Rico. 

Spain now expressed a desire for peace. Accordingly, The 
President McKinley offered peace on the following terms : of 
first, the immediate evacuation of Cuba and the relinquish- 
ment of Spanish sovereignty ; second, the cession of Porto 
Rico; and third, the occupation by the United States of the 
city, bay, and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of a 
treaty of peace which should determine the control, disposi- 
tion, and government of the Philippines. As the war was 
fought for Cuba, Spain desired to give up only that island. 
She was especially anxious to retain Porto Rico, *' the last 
memory of a glorious past." But the United States was the 
master of the situation and insisted upon taking more than 
Spain desired to give. By the terms of the treaty ratified in 
1899 Spain relinquished all claim to sovereignty over Cuba 






GULF OF 
MEXICO 



(/ BAHAMA 
ISLANDS 




Statute Miles 



ATLANTIC 

O C S A N 



^ V <,rf C^ ,rJ. 



#" 



Jamaica 






£ A 



The Spanish-American War in the West Indies. 

and ceded to the United States Porto Rico, Guam, and the 
Philippines. As an indemnity for the Philippines the United 

voyage of 15,000 miles in fifty-nine days and arrived in time to take part in the 
engagement with the Spanish fleet. 



552 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

States agreed to pay Spain the sum of $20,000,000. The 
treaty also provided that " the civil rights and political status 
of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to 
the United States shall be determined by the Congress." 
The How were Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines to be 

ment governed? Were they to be treated as dependent colonies or 

ofthe *= , , -^ , . * 

Insular were they to be governed as it was our custom to govern 1 er- 
8ions ritories? In answering these questions Congress dealt with 

each of the new possessions singly and gave to each the kind 
of government which it seemed to need. Cuba, in accord- 
ance with the declaration made at the time of intervention, 
was allowed to form an independent government, but before 
the United States would withdraw its troops from the island, 
Cuba by the terms of the Piatt Amendment had to incorporate 
in its constitution a provision to the effect that it would never 
enter into any treaty or compact with any foreign power which 
would impair its own independence. Porto Rico and the 
Philippines were brought under the direct control of Con- 
gress. The Filipinos were regarded as incapable of self-gov- 
ernment and were placed under the control of a commission 
appointed by the President. Porto Rico was provided with 
a government whose executive branch was appointed by the 
President and whose legislative branch was in part appointed by 
the President and in part elected by the voters of the island. 
Neither the Filipinos nor the Porto Ricans were recognized 
as citizens of the United States. At first the Filipinos on 
some of the islands were discontented with American rule 
and in February 1899, insurgent forces led by Aguinaldo at- 
tacked the American army at Manila. The uprising, how- 
ever, was put down and gradually the Filipinos became rec- 
onciled to American rule. 
Hawau But the period of expansion brought us more than the ac- 

quisitions wrested from Spain. During the progress of the 
war the Hawaiian Islands were annexed to the United States. 
A treaty had been negotiated for the annexation of Hawaii in 
1893, but before it was ratified Harrison's term expired. 
When Cleveland came back to power he withdrew the treaty 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 553 

from the Senate. In 1898, however, the islands were for- 
mally annexed by a joint resolntion of Congress, the annexa- 
tion being thought wise because the Spanish War made it plain 
to us that Hawaii was important as a base for naval operations 
in the Far East. In 1900, Congress provided for Hawaii a 
regular territorial form of government (p. 250). 

We had hardly acquired Hawaii and the Philippines before The 

. . . . Boxer 

there occurred an incident which showed that our position Rebel- 
lion 
in the Far East was to involve us m new duties and responsi- 
bilities. In May 1900, an association of Chinese fanatics 
known as the Boxers, whose main purpose was to prevent 
China from adopting the " open door " policy in matters of 
trade, gained control of the territory around the city of 
Peking and began a war of extermination upon foreigners, 
being encouraged in their lawlessness by the Empress Dow- 
ager of China. For nearly two months they besieged the 
residences of foreign ambassadors and many Americans and 
Europeans were killed. In August a strong force consisting 
of soldiers and sailors furnished by the United States, Japan, 
Great Britain, France, and Russia, moved upon Peking, made 
a breach in the walls, and secured the besieged foreigners. 
In this work of relief our government took a leading part, for 
it promptly furnished several thousand American troops 
who were readily available by reason of our military occupa- 
tion of the Philippines. As an indemnity for the injuries 
caused by the Boxer uprising the European nations wished to 
seize upon Chinese territory but the influence of the United 
States, directed by John Hay, the Secretary of State, was 
exerted in favor of the territorial integrity of China and the 
" open door policy " — that is, that all nations should have 
equal commercial privileges at Chinese ports. In the end the 
policy advocated by Secretary Hay prevailed. China lost no 
part of her territory and her ports were thrown open to the 
rommerce of the world. 



554 



ADVATnICED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Gold 
Basis 
Estab- 
lished 



177. THE REELECTION OF McKINLEY; HIS ASSASSINA- 
TION. 

The war with Spain and the new foreign policies had the 
effect of diverting attention from the currency question, the 
very question that brought the Republicans into power. In 
fact, President AIcKinley was hardly inaugurated before cur- 
rency conditions began to improve. In 1897 the supply of 
gold for the mints was greatly increased by the output which 
came from the newly-discovered deposits of the Klondike 
region. Moreover, there arose about the same time an ex- 
traordinary demand from 
abroad for our food-stuffs 
with the result that an un- 
usual amount of foreign 
gold was poured into our 
coffers. The money in 
circulation rose from 
$23.24 per capita in 1895 
to $26.93 in 1900. Ac- 
cordingly, when the Re- 
publicans late in the Mc- 
Kinley administration un- 
dertook to deal with the 
financial situation, condi- 
tions were favorable to 
success. In 1900 they 
passed the Gold Standard 
Act. This law placed our currency on a gold basis. It pro- 
vided that the dollar, consisting of 25.8 grains of gold nine- 
tenths pure, should be the standard of value. In order that 
this standard might be maintained, the Secretary of the 
Treasury was directed to set aside from the general funds 
of the treasury the sum of $150,000,000 in gold as a reserve 
for the redemption of all forms of money issued or coined. 
If the redemption fund should fall below $100,000,000 
the secretary was authorized to borrow money by the issue 




Williata McKinley. 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 555 

of bonds sufficient to bring the reserve up to $150,000,000. 
The law also amended the national banking act (p. 470) 
by providing for the organization of banks in places of 3,000 
inhabitants or less with a capital of $25,000, and permitting 
banks to issue notes on the bonds deposited up to the par 
value of the bonds. 

When the presidential campaign of 1900 opened the Re- JJ°™g°*" 
publicans were confident of success. They had passed the ^^^ 
Dingley tariff, they had waged a war which resulted in gain- ["™^ 
ing us vast insular possessions, and they had established the ^^^^ 
gold standard. In their platform they reviewed their achieve- 
ments and on the strength of their record they asked the country 
to retain them in power. They renominated McKinley unani- 
mously on the first ballot. For Vice-President, Theodore 
Roosevelt, a member of the convention, received 923 votes, 
one less than the full number voting, he having refrained 
from voting. The Democrats unanimously nominated Mr. 
Bryan again. In accordance with the wishes of the nominee, 
but in opposition to the wishes of many Democratic lead- 
ers, the platform declared for the free coinage of silver in 
terms as strong as those used in 1896 (p. 543). But free 
silver was not made the leading issue. The Republicans 
when dealing with the new possessions in some instances 
ignored the principles of self-government and seemed to be 
entering upon a policy of imperialism. Here, the Demo- 
crats declared, was the supreme question of the hour. " The 
burning issue of imperialism," said the Democratic platform, 
" growing out of the Spanish War, involves the very ex- 
istence of the Republic and the destruction of our free insti- 
tutions. We regard it as the paramount issue of the cam- 
paign." 

The campaign of 1900 was marked by little enthusiasm cam- 
or excitement. The number of those who were really fright- of^^'^ 
ened by the prospect of imperialism was relatively small, 
while the champions of free silver were by no means so ardent 
as they had been in 1896. The country was prosperous in 
a high degree and when Mr. Hanna, who was again the cam- 



556 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



"The 
Nations 
Linked 
To- 
gether" 



Reci- 
procity 



jjaign manager for the Republicans, sent out the word that 
voters should be told " to let well enough alone," and that a 
vote for McKinlev meant a vote for a " full dinner-pail," he 
advanced an argument that to many minds is the strongest 
that can be made. Bryan again made an earnest and bril- 
liant cami)aign but he led a forlorn iiope ; the whole trend of 
things was entirely unfavorable to a change in administration. 
The election resulted in an easy victory for the Republicans. 
McKinley received 292 electoral votes and Bryan 155. 

President McKinley entered upon his second term (Alarch 
4. 1901) with every prospect for a successful administration. 
In the spring of 1901 he made an extended tour through 
South and West and wherever he went he was cordially re- 
ceived. In the autumn he was the honored guest at the 
Pan-American Exposition held at Buffalo. Here, on Sep- 
tember 5, he made a speech in which he called attention to 
the new position which the United States had assumed among 
the nations, and he outlined a commercial policy for his 
countrymen to pursue. " Isolation," he said, " is no longer 
possible or desirable. God and man have linked the nations 
together. No nation can longer be indifferent to another. 
Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we 
have. . . . Reciprocity is the natural growth of our wonder- 
ful industrial development. What we produce beyond our 
domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. . . . We 
should sell everywhere w^e can buy and buy wherever the 
buying will enlarge our sales and productiveness. The period 
of exclusiveness is past." 



The 

Assassi- 
nation 
of 

Presi- 
dent 
McKin- 
ley 



178. ROOSEVELT CONTINUES THE POLICY OF McKINLEY 

(1901-1905). 

This was the last public utterance of President McKinley. 
On September 6, at a public reception given in his honor, he 
was shot by an assassin, who had been impelled to his mur- 
derous deed by the teachings of anarchists. At first it was 
hoped that the President would recover but his wounds were 
mortal ; on the 14th of September he passed away. His death 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 



557 



was mourned by the whole body of the American people. 
" He had been singularly pure and blameless in his private 
life, honest in his public service, kindly and gentle in his 
contact with men." 

Upon the death of President McKinley, the Vice-President, Theo- 
Theodore Roosevelt, at once took the oath of office as Pres- Roose. 
ident. To the members of McKinley 's Cabinet who stood J"^i. 
around him as he was sworn, the new President said : '" In 
this the hour of national bereavement I wish to state that it 
shall be my intention and endeavor to continue absolutely 

unbroken the policy of President 
McKinley, for the peace and pros- 
perity of our beloved country." 
Soon after this he requested each 
member of the existing Cabinet to 
remain in office. The promise to 
carry out the policies of his prede- 
cessor and the retention of the 
Cabinet went far toward allaying 
the fears of those who may have 
felt that the new President was 
too young — he was only forty- 
three — and too inexperienced to 
guide the affairs of the nation. 
One of the first things to engage the attention of Pres- The 

Growtk 

ident Roosevelt was the subject of the Trusts. He found of the 

, Trust! 

that the forces for concentration (p. 537) had not been 
checked by the Sherman Law. In spite of that law and in 
spite of the anti-trust laws passed by the several States the 
trusts continued to flourish. " If there is any serious student 
of our economic life," said Professor Ely in 1899, " who 
believes that anything substantial has been gained by all the 
laws passed against trusts, by all the newspaper editorials 
which have thus far been penned, by all the sermons which 
have been preached against them, this authority has yet to 
be heard from. Forms and names have been changed in many 
instances, but the dreaded work of vast aggregation of cap- 




Copr 1904, by Arthur Ho 

Theodore Roosevelt. 



558 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

War 

Against 

the 

Trusts 



The 
Labor 
Move- 
ment 



a 



ital has gone on practically as before." By 1902 nearly one- 
third of the total production of all industries, excluding that 
of agriculture, had been brought under the control of trusts. 
One trust controlled seventy-five per cent, of the steel in- 
dustry ; another sold ninety per cent, of the sugar output ; 
another refined seventy-five per cent, of the oil ; another manu- 
factured seventy-five per cent, of the paper. 

Much of this concentration of industry was due to the fact 
that the anti-trust law had not been rigidly enforced. Pres- 
ident Roosevelt early determined that his law-officers should 
move against the trusts and move against them in earnest. 
" No suit," he said, " will be undertaken for the sake of 
seeming to undertake it, and when a suit is undertaken it will 
not be compromised except upon the basis that the Govern- 
ment wins." In this spirit his Attorney-General brought suit 
against the Northern Securities Company, which was or- 
ganized for the purpose of merging the interests of the Great 
Northern and the Northern Pacific Railways in such a way 
as to destroy competition between the two roads. The suit 
was successful ; in 1904 the Northern Securities Company 
was forced by the Supreme Court of the United States to dis- 
solve. Suit was also brought against a combination of meat- 
packers known as the Beef Trust and an injunction was 
secured forbidding this trust from fixing prices arbitrarily, 
curtailing the supply of meat, or otherwise restraining the 
freedom of trade. This movement against the trusts awak- 
ened the resentment of the " captains of industry " but it 
was warmly a])proved by the people. 

While capitalists were organizing the Trusts workingmen 
were also concentrating their forces. The labor movement 
which l)egan to show strength in the eighties (p. 528) had 
by the opening of the twentieth century acquired tremendous 
momentum. By 1903 more than 2,000,000 wage-earners were 
organized into labor unions of one kind or another, one union 
alone having the enormous membership of 300,000. The 
power of the unions was seen in the laws which had been 
passed to promote the welfare of workingmen. By 1903 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 559 

in more than two-thirds of the States the employment of 
children under fourteen years of age was forbidden by law ; i 

in more than half the States women could not lawfully be j 

employed in factories more than ten hours a day; in nearly | 

half the States the working-day of State and municipal em- ' 

ployees was limited to eight hours ; in two-thirds of the States, 
there were bureaus of labor for collecting and giving out 
information on labor topics. 

But the chief thing the labor union did was to give the CoUect- 
workingmen the strength of organization when they were Bargain- 
bargaining with their employers in regard to wages and hours 
of labor. Under the trade union system the individual work- 
man ceased to bargain with his employers in regard to the 
conditions of employment. Instead of individual bargaining 
there was developed a system of collective bargaining: rep- 
resentatives of the labor organizations met in conference with 
the employers and there was higgling as to wages and hours 
of labor, and when a bargain was struck it was made bind- 
ing upon every member of the organization represented in 
the conference. Sometimes this collective bargaining was 
conducted on a vast scale, the agreement affecting hundreds 
of establishments and large sections of the country. 

But the collective bargain could not always be peacefully The 
made. In 1902 the miners in the anthracite coal region went strike 
on a strike because they could not reach an agreement with 
their employers in respect to wages and hours of labor. The 
miners were members of the United Mine Workers of Amer- 
ica, at whose head was John Mitchell, a man who himself 
had worked in the mines. Opposed to the miners was the 
Coal Trust, whose chief spokesman was George F. Baer, pres- 
ident of the Reading Coal Company. The miners at first 
offered to submit their claims to arbitration but their offer 
was bluntly rejected by Baer, who said there was nothing to 
arbitrate. " Anthracite mining," he said, " is a business, not 
a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition." The strike, 
which was declared in May, involved nearly 150,000 men. 
The mine-owners, relying upon their resources, hoped to tire 



f,6o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Panama 

Canal 




Copr. 1900, Pacli Bros. 

John Mitchell. 



the miners out. But the miners themselves were not without 
resources. The Mine Workers voted $2,000,000 a month for 
the support of the strikers. So the deadlock was protracted. 
The strike dragged on through the summer and far into the 
fall. The price of coal soared higher and higher. In some 

places it was $30 a ton. In many 
places it could not be bought at any 
price. The poor suffered, and 
schools and hospitals had to go 
without fires. In order to prevent 
the coal famine which was threat- 
ened, President Roosevelt under- 
took to settle the strike. After a 
great deal of trouble he succeeded 
in getting the strikers and the mine- 
owners to submit their differences 
to a commission which was ap- 
pointed by himself. Work in the 
mines was now promptly resumed 
and soon the people could get the coal for which they were 
suffering. In due time the arbitration commission brought in 
a decision favorable in the main to the miners. President 
Roosevelt had no legal authority to take action in regard to the 
strike but he felt that his intervention would be justified by 
public opinion and in this he was not disappointed. His act 
gave offense to the mine-owners but it pleased the majority of 
the people. 

While the President was wrestling with the coal strike he 
was at the same time furthering the project for constructing 
a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. We saw (p. 364) that 
the importance of an isthmian canal was fully recognized 
during the rush to California. During the Spanish War the 
long voyage of the Oregon around Cape Horn showed how 
important such a canal would be from a naval point of view. 
After we entered upon our policy of expansion it seemed 
that an inter-oceanic canal was almost a political and com- 
mercial necessity. But there were many perplexing problems 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 



561 



connected with the building of such a canal. In 1881, a 
French company organized by Ferdinand de Lesseps began 
to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama but the under 
taking ended in failure. According to the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty (p. 364), if the United States should undertake to 




Photographed by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y 

Panama Canal nearly ready for the big ships. 

build an isthmian canal Great Britain would have to be a 
party to the undertaking But in time public opinion in the 
United States was opposed to this arrangement. President 
Hayes in 1880 declared that any canal that might be con- 
structed between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans should 
be under American control. And this was the American 
view when in 1901 the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was ratified. 
This treaty expressly abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and 
acknowledged the exclusive right of the United States to 
build, operate, and maintain a canal. Several routes for the 
proposed canal were considered but in 1902 the Panama route 
was finally agreed upon. The unfinished work of the French 



562 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

company was purchased for the sum of $40,000,000. A 
treaty for a right of way across the isthmus was made with 
Colombia, the nation to which the Isthmus of Panama be- 
longed. As a consideration for the right of way $10,000,000 
was to be paid to Colombia in cash and in addition an annuity 
of $250,000. But the Colombian Senate rejected the treaty. 
Still, the plans of the canal were only temporarily halted. In 
1903, Panama, one of the States of the United States of 
Colombia, seceded. President Roosevelt sent United States 
troops to prevent Colombia from using force against Panama 
in the vicinity of the canal and he quickly recognized the 
new government organized by the seceding State, basing his 
action upon a treaty of 1846 between New Granada (after- 
wards Colombia) and the United States, by which the former 
was to guarantee the freedom of the canal route from hostile 
•demonstrations that would prevent its free use. In Feb- 
ruary 1904, a convention between Panama and the United 
States stipulated that the United States should guarantee 
the independence of the new republic of Panama, and 
that in return Panama should cede to the United States 
perpetual control of a zone of land ten miles wide for the 
construction of a canal. For the right of way the United 
States paid to Panama substantially what it had agreed to 
pay to Colombia. The task of building the canal was now 
taken up in earnest. A lock-type of canal was agreed upon 
and steps were taken " to make the dirt fly." At the close 
of 1 9 12 about 40,000 laborers were at work upon the canal 
and indications were that it would be finished and opened by 
January 191 5. Thus the quest begun by Columbus for a 
short route to the Indies at last bade fair to be crowned 
with success. 
The In the presidential campaign of 1904 Mr. Roosevelt came 

1904 forward as the candidate for the Republican nomination and 

he was unanimously nominated. The Republican platform 
contained nothing that was startling or significant. It re- 
viewed the recent history of the Republican party and ex- 
pressed willingness to go before the country upon the strength 



THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 563 

of the party's achievements. The Democrats nominated Alton 
B. Parker of New York. Their platform was remarkable 
chiefly for what it did not contain : it was silent upon the 
money question. The reason for abandoning the free silver 
issue was stated as follows, although the statement did not 
appear in the platform : The discovery of gold in the last 
few years and the greatly increased production thereof, adding 
$2,000,000,000 to the world's supply, of which $700,000,000 
falls to the share of the United States, have contributed to 
the maintenance of a money standard of values no longer open 
to question, removing that issue from the field of political 
contention," The Socialists in 1904 again nominated Mr. 
Debs. The issues between the two great parties in the cam- 
paign were not sharply drawn and the contest was without 
excitement. The victory of Roosevelt, however, was over- 
whelming. He received 336 electoral votes as against 140 
for Judge Parker, and his majority over Parker was upwards 
of two and a half millions, the largest ever given to a candi- 
date for the Presidency. 

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR INDEPENDENT 

WORK 

1. Intervention in Cuba: Latane, 3-28. 

2. The destruction of the Maine: Halsey X, 125-131. 

3. The Battle of Manila Bay: Halsey X, 132-134; Hitchcock, 347- 
356. 

4. The Battle of Santiago: Hitchcock, 357-376; Halsey X, 135-1544 

5. The assassination of President McKinley: Halsey X, 159-162. 

6. The Philippine Insurrection : Latane, 82-99. 

7. The annexation of Hawaii: Halsey X, 155-158. 

8. The Monroe Doctrine and world poHtics : Latane, 255-266. 

9. The election of 1904: Latane, 224-241. 

10. The building of the Panama Canal: Halsey X, 169-176; Latane» 
204-223. 



XLV 

A PROGRESSIVE ERA (1905-) 

In the last cliapter we saw tliat in the uponing years of the twentieth 
century a reforming or progressive spirit was manifest in the ad- 
ministration of the government. This forward-looking tendency was 
characteristic not only of the political world but of almost every de- 
partment of American life. So pervasive and general was the spirit 
of progressiveness during the early years of the twentieth century 
that the period was regarded by many as the beginning of a Pro- 
gressive Era. 

179. TWENTIETH CENTURY PROGRESS IN SOCIAL 
MATTERS. 

Progress The progressive movement in the twentieth centtiry received 
Education its greatest strength from the educational achievements of 
the time. The cause of popular education which was in so 
flourishing a condition in the eighties (p. 515) continued to 
acquire force with each succeeding decade. By 1900 there 
were more than 15,000,000 pupils enrolled in our schools and 
by 1912 the mighty army of learners had increased to nearly 
20,000.000. In 1913 more than 1,000,000 pupils were in our 
public high schools and academies and nearly 200,000 students 
were in our colleges and universities. While the schools were 
growing in number educators were striving to make them 
more useful. Besides the instruction given in the traditional 
subjects — in language, in mathematics, in science — courses 
were given in manual training and in the domestic arts. 
Some schools furnished even a vocational training which 
aimed ( i ) to assist the younger pupils in finding out what 
kind of work they were best fitted to perform, and (2) to 
give the older pupils the specific training necessary to prepare 
them for their chosen vocations. In addition to tlie regularly 

564 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 565 

organized schools many supplementary and indirect agencies 
assisted in spreading intelligence among the people. ^ The 
rural, free delivery carried the daily newspaper to millions 
who hitherto had not been accustomed to receive it ; hundreds 
of Carnegie libraries gave reading matter to millions who 
could not afford to buy books ; summer, vacation, and evening 
schools were attended by multitudes who could find no other 
opportunity for study ; free public lectures were established 
in the large cities and were attended by large audiences ; the 
university extension system, the Chautauqua circle, and the cor- 
respondence school reached hundreds of thousands of students. 
With all these opportunities for education it was little wonder illiteracy 
that few went untaught ; in 1910, of the persons in the United 
States above the age of ten, only seventy-seven in a thousand 
were illiterate; of the whites only forty-nine in a thousand 
were illiterate. 

One of the chief results of this wide diffusion of knowl- Progres- 
sive 
edge was to create a desire for the betterment of social con- Legisia- 

ditions. This desire showed itself in many ways and in many 
different lines of endeavor. The field of legislation was 
especially rich in measures designed for improving social con- 
ditions. In 1912 Congress established a Children's Bureau 
which was charged with the duty of investigating all matters 
pertaining to the welfare of children and child life. The 
next year Congress organized the Department of Labor and 
gave it power to make investigations in regard to the welfare 
of workingmen. But as most of the affairs pertaining to the 

1 The cause of education was advanced by the gifts of Andrew Carnegie and 
John D. Rockefeller. The Carnegie Institution of Washington was founded 
in 1902 with the purpose of encouraging original investigation and research. 
The total endowment of this institution (in 1913) was $22,000,000. The Carnegie 
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founded in 1905 for the pur- 
pose of providing retiring-allowances for teachers and officers in certain colleges 
and universities. The endowment of the Foundation (1913) was $14,000,000. The 
Carnegie Corporation of New York was organized in 1911 with the purpose of 
promoting the advancement and diffusion of knowledge among the people of the 
United States by giving aid to institutions of higher learning. The endowment of 
this corporation (1913) was $25,000,000. The General Educational Board, char- 
tered in 1903 by Congress, was organized and endowed for the purpose of pro- 
jnoting education in the South. The gifts of Rockefeller brought the endowment 
of the board up to $30,000,000. 



560 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

every-day life of the people are regulated by the State (p. 200) 
^ it was by means of State legislation that most of the social 
' ''■--J reforms were accomplished. The warfare against child-labor 
i^ and against the over-working of women in factories was con- 
ducted with such vigor that few States failed to enact laws 
^\<^ forbidding the employment of children too young to work and 
':' limiting the number of hours that women could be lawfully 
employed. Many States enacted Employers' Liability Laws 
which gave increased protection to workmen suffering in- 
jury from accidents. Thus in New Jersey and in Wiscon- 
sin laws were enacted which gave to employees injured 
by an accident of which the negligence of the employer 
was the cause, compensation according to a schedule of pay- 
ments, the compensation for temporary disabilities amounting 
to at least half the regular wages of the injured person. In 
a few of the States there was a movement for old age pensions. 
Thus in Massachusetts, cities and towns (other than Boston) 
were directed to retire and pension laborers that had been in 
their employ for 25 years and had attained the age of 65 
years. Wisconsin undertook to furnish life insurance at the 
cheapest possible rates, having provided by law that the State 
Insurance Commissioner should conduct a life insurance busi- 
ness solely for the benefit of the policy-holders. Illinois, 
Colorado, and Pennsylvania ventured upon a system of pen- 
sions for indigent parents. In Illinois pensions were provided 
for parents who were so poor as to be unable to care for their 
children, it being left to a court to decide whether the pension 
should be granted or not and to determine the amount of the 
pension. In Michigan and Ohio a system of school pensions 
was adopted. In Michigan boards of education were given 
power to grant pensions not exceeding $3.00 a week to chil- 
dren whose services were absolutely necessary at home and 
who by law were compelled to go to school. Massachusetts 
and Utah went so far as to attempt to secure for laborers 
a minimum wage, that is, the lowest wage that employers 
should give, if they wish their employees to live in a decent 
and comfortable manner. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 



567 



But it was not only through the agencies of government Social 
that social reforms were undertaken. Private agencies were ment 
also potent in the movement for social betterment/ Charity 
organization societies — associated charities — extended their 
work and increased in number until almost every small city 
had an agency by which the poor could be helped in a ra- 
tional and scientific manner. Hospitals founded by private 
munificence also increased in number to such 
an extent that in some States there was hardly 
a locality where there was not a hospital in 
which the sick could be cared for at a reason- 
able rate." The work of the hospital was 
supplemented by visiting nurses who went 
into the homes of the poor and gave prac- 
tical instruction in the art of nursing. The 
Red Cross Society, which was originally or- 
ganized for the purpose of mitigating the 
horrors of war by alleviating the suffering of 
the sick and wounded, broadened the sphere 
of its usefulness and administered to the 
needs of those who suffered from disease or 
as a result of fire or flood, or the catastrophes 
of nature.^ The Boy Scout movement gained 
strength and hundreds of thousands of manly 




1 Prominent among these agencies was the Russell Sage Foundation which was 
organized in 1907 with an endowment of $10,000,000, devoted to the broad social 
mission of " discovering and eradicating as far as possible the causes of poverty 
and ignorance." 

2 In the city of New York alone there were in 1913 nearly no private hos- 
pitals. Notable among these is the Rockefeller Institute Hospital for Medical Re- 
search which was founded by John D. Rockefeller with an endowment of over 
$12,000,000. 

3 Great Calamities. The services of the Red Cross Society were often sorely 
needed, for in the first years of the twentieth century there were a number of 
great calamities. In September, igoo, Galveston was swept by a tornado and 
submerged by a tidal wave, and in the fearful cataclysm 2000 people lost their 
lives and property worth $30,000,000 was destroyed. In ,1904 a fire in Baltimore 
destroyed $70,000,000 worth of property. In April, 1906, San Francisco was visited 
by an earthquake which caused the death of more than 400 people and destroyed 
between $200,000,000 and $300,000,000 worth of property. In 1913 Dayton was 
submerged by a flood which destroyed a vast amount of property and caused great 
loss of lif& 



568 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

boys assumed the duties imposed by the Scout's vow : " On 
my honor I will do my best: to do my duty to God and my 
country and to obey the scout law ; to help other people at all 
times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and 
morally straight." 
The The movement for peace among the nations which at the 

Movement opening of the twentieth century was gaining strength through- 
out the world met with favor in the United States and the 
cause was promoted in a striking manner by the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace, an institution which was 
endowed with $10,000,000 for the purpose of establishing 
among nations a better understanding of international rights 
and duties and encouraging a general acceptance of peaceful 
methods of settling international disputes. 
Tjjg In most of these progressive movements women played a 

Mo^ment conspicuous part. In fact, with the opening of the twentieth 
century women began to assume a greater prominence in 
American life than they had ever before attained. Economic 
conditions had forced them into the industrial and professional 
world and had compelled them to face life as men must face 
it.^ They met the new conditions bravely and the Woman's 
Movement was not far advanced before it showed that some 

of the big tasks of the world could 
be performed as well by women 
as they could be by men. Two 
women — Clara Barton and Mabel 
Boardman — directed the heavy 
and responsible work of the Red 
Cross Society. Mrs. Ella Flagg 
Young, as superintendent of the 
Chicago public schools, and Mrs. 
Alice Freeman Palmer, as presi- 
Jane Addams. f|(,„^ ^f Wellcsley College, showed 

1 According to the census of 1900 more than 5,000,000 women were engaged in 
self-supporting pursuits. About 400,000 of these were stenographers, clerks, and 
telegraph and telephone operators. More than 430,000 were teachers, physicians, 
and lawyers. About 1,200 women were bank oflficials, 1,900 were stock-raisers 
and 5,000 were classified as barbers. 




A PROGRESSIVE ERA 569 

that great educational interests were safe in the hands of 
women. The work of Miss Jane Addams at the Hull House 
in Chicago was a conspicuous example of what devotion and 
good sense could accomplish in the way of uplifting the sub- 
merged classes in the heart of a great city. Miss Frances E. 
Willard led the temperance cause with such distinguished 
ability that it was thought proper to place her statue in the 
Capitol at Washington among the statues of the most famous 
men of the nation. 

180. THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE. 

The general diffusion of knowledge also resulted in a num- J^^j^^j^g^ 
ber of reforms the purpose of which was to make the people ^®^'^®^°^ 
more completely the masters of government. Young citizens Recall 
who in the schools studied the history of their country and 
acquired a knowledge of civil government could be relied upon 
to support measures which made the government more re- 
sponsive to the popular will. A most important reform con- 
sisted in giving the people power to participate directly in the 
work of legislation. This was accomplished by the device 
known as the initiative and referendum.^ In 1898 the initia- 
tive and referendum was adopted by South Dakota and by 
191 3 direct legislation in one form or another had been adopted 
by Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Oklahoma, Missouri, 
Maine, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, California, 
Nebraska, Washington, Wyoming, Michigan, and Ohio. As- 
sociated with the initiative and referendum was the " recall," 
a device whose aim was to give the people complete control 
over the officers whom they elected. Where this device was 
brought into use an officer could by a popular vote be deprived 
of (recalled from) his office before his term expired. Oregon 

1 " The Initiative is a device whereby any person or persons may draft a 
statute and on securing the signatures of a small percentage of the voters may 
compel the State officials, with or without the intervention of the legislature, to 
submit the same to a popular vote; and if the required popular approval is 
secured, the proposal becomes a law. The Referendum is a plan whereby a small 
percentage of the voters may demand that any statute passed by the legislature 
(with the exception of certain laws) must be submitted to the electorate and ap- 
proved by a stipulated majority before going into effect." (Beard.) 



570 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



Woman 
Suffrage 



adopted the recall in 1908 and by 1913 the device was also 
in use in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Washing- 
ton, and Nevada. In some of these States, however, the re- 
call does not apply to judges. 

Another wide-reaching political reform consisted in ex- 
tending the suffrage to women on equal terms with men.^ 




and Referend 



(States haviiiK the liiitu 

I the KccttU and Wmnaii Suffrage 
States having the Initiative and [~ 

Kef erendum and Woman Suffrage |_ 

States having the Initiative and Recall I 



Initiative and 



um,r ) States having the I 

; i Referendum only 

1 States having Woman Suffrage only 



Map showing the progress of popular rule. 



The conditions which forced women into the industrial world 
had a tendency to force her also into the political world, and 
in the opening years of the twentieth century women de- 
manded political rights with an insistence never before shown. 
Their claims were listened to and a wide extension of the 
suffrage was secured. In the later years of the nineteenth 

1 The demand for votes for women was made at times during the first half of 
the nineteenth century. In 1848 a woman's suffrage convention under the 
leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton was held at Seneca Falls, New York. In, 
1869 there was organized in New York the National Woman's Suffrage Associa- 
tion headed by Susan B. Anthony. In 1892 this association was merged into the 
American Woman's Suffrage Association of which Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt 
was elected the president. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 571 

century four States — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho 
— granted the suffrage to women upon equal terms with men. 
By 1914 California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Kan- 
sas had been added to the list of equal suffrage States, while 
in Illinois women had been given the right to vote for presi- 
dential electors and for many important local officers. 

The movement for a more direct control of government Popular 

° Election 

brought a change in the method of electing United States ot 
Senators. In the last half of the nineteenth century the plan 
of electing Senators by the State legislatures (15) began to 
work in a most unsatisfactory manner and in some cases did 
not work at all, for legislatures were sometimes so disor- 
ganized by factional wrangles that they were unable to make 
a choice. So, it was proposed to elect Senators by the direct 
vote of the people and after years of agitation the Seven- 
teenth Amendment ^ was submitted (in 19 12) to the States for 
ratification and in 1913 was adopted as a part of the Consti- 
tution (161). 

Many reforms designed to strengthen the rule of the people ^irect 
were also made in the organization of party machinery, tions 
The convention system of nominating candidates gave way to 
•a system of direct nominations. Instead of giving power to 
party-leaders to select a candidate, voters went to primary 
meetings and voted directly for the candidates they wanted to 
represent their party at the coming election. The system of 
direct nomination was carried so far that by 19 12 in many 
States voters were given an opportunity to express by direct 
vote their preference in respect to presidential candidates. 
In some States, as in North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, 
California, and Maryland, the selection of party delegates to 
national conventions was made a State affair by providing 
that such delegates should be elected by a popular vote of the 
State at large. 

Another political reform which found its strength in the Municipal 

, , , ... Eeforms 

progressive movement related to the government of cities. 

1 The Sixteenth Amendment (160) giving Congress full power in respect to 
the taxation of incomes was also adopted in 1913. 



572 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Commis- 
sion 
System 



There was need of reform in this direction, for at the opening 
of the twentieth century urban communities were developing 
at such a rapid rate ^ that their government was giving rise 
to serious and perplexing problems and there was so much 
mismanagement and corruption in our cities that municipal 
government was becoming a shame and disgrace. One of the 
most popular of municipal reforms consisted in establishing 
the commission form of government. This system of munici- 
pal organization, which originated in Galveston after the great 
inundation in 1900, had for its aim the focusing of responsi- 
bility in the management of city aflfairs and the elimination 
of partizanship in the election of city officers. Under the 
commission plan great power was lodged in a small group of 
men — usually five commissioners or councilmen — but this 
power was not likely to be abused, for wherever the commis- 
sion system was installed the people usually reserved for 
themselves the powers residing in the initiative, referendum, 
and recall. Des Moines followed Galveston in adopting the 
commission system and the new form of organization met 
with such favor that by 1914 it had been adopted by nearly 
250 cities.- Another municipal reform which had for its aim a 
greater concentration of authority than that provided for by- 
the commission system was the city manager plan. Where 
this plan was adopted, as in Dayton and other Ohio cities, the 
entire administration of the affairs of a city was entrusted to 
a city manager appointed by the commission or council. In 
a number of States, as in California, Nebraska, and Michigan, 
Municipal municipal reform consisted in giving to the people of the 
city the privilege of framing their own charter just as 
the people of a State frame their own constitution. For ex- 
ample, the constitution of Ohio provided that if a municipality 



Home 
Rule 



1 In 1910 about 35% of the entire population of the United States lived in in- 
corporated places of 2,500 inhabitants or more. About 100 of these cities con- 
tained more than 50,000 inhabitants and about thirty more than 200,000 each. 

2 Commission government recognizes the principle of the " short ballot," the 
purpose of which is to enable the voter to make an intelligent choice of candi- 
dates by making only the most important offices elective and voting for only a 
few officers at one time. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 573 

so desired it might adopt its own charter by electing a com- 
mission of fifteen to frame the charter and submit it to the 
people for ratification. In California this principle of " home 
rule " was carried so far that counties were allowed to de- 
termine their own form of county government. 

i8i. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 
(1900-1912). 

These social and political reforms were accomplished dur- Material 

. . . . . Progress 

ing a period of commercial and industrial activity that was 
almost feverish in its intensity. After the country recovered 
from the panic of 1893 the times which followed were so good 
that President McKinley in 1901 was constrained to say that 
our prosperity was appalling. This prosperous condition of 
affairs continued with but slight interruptions throughout the 
whole of the first decade of the twentieth century. How 
great was our progress during these years is shown in the 
table below : 

PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 
1900 AND igi2 

1900 1912 

Population! 75.944-575 96,410,5031 

Wealth $88,000,000,000 $125,000,000,000 

Money in circulation 2,055,150,000 3,276,786,000 

Deposits in savings banks 2,458,000,000 5,825,000,000 

Value of farms and farm property. 20,400,000,000 40,000,000,000 

Value of farm products 4,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 

Value of manufactured products. . . 8,000,000,000 20,000,000,000 

Value of exports 1,394,000,000 2,204,000,000 

Value of imports 849,900,000 1,653,000,000 

Production of petroleum (gallons) 2,672,000,000 9,258,000,000 

Production of pig iron (tons).... 13,789,000 23,649,000 

Production of steel (tons) 10,188,000 23,676,000 

Wheat (bushels) 522,000,000 621,000,000 

Corn (bushels) 2,105,000,000 2,531,000,000 

Cotton (bales) 10,245,000 16,109,000 

Railways operated (miles) 194,000 246,000 

Salaries of public school teachers. 137,687,000 253,915,000 

Immigrants arrived 448,512 838,173 

Urban population 31,000,000 42,000,000 

1 The Table is based upon figures given out by the Bureau of Statistics and 
by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. The figures are given in 
most cases in round numbers. 



574 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



progreBs Much of this prosperity was due to the progress that was 
Industrial made in the industrial arts. Never before were inventors 

Arts 

busier or more numerous than m the opening years of the 

twentieth century. Of the whole number of patents (about 
1,000,000) issued from the foundation of the government up 
to 1914, nearly one-third of them were issued after 1900. In 
the single year of 1912 more than 35,000 patents were issued. 
The influence of invention was felt in almost every field of 
endeavor Manufacturing was greatly stimulated by the in- 
creased use of electricity as a motive power. In 1910 elec- 

r 



Progress 
In 

Trans- 
portation 




I'h,.tugrai)lied Ijy H M. A.isc)uil/.. Kc.kuk. 

Keokuk Dam. 

Down-stream side of dam immediately east of coffer-dam. 

trical energy amounting to more than 5,000,000 horse-power 
was generated by the fall of water and transmitted through 
wires to distant points. At Niagara a 250,000 horse-power 
force was generated at the Falls and distributed to points as 
far away as Syracuse. At Keokuk, Iowa, a dam was thrown 
across the Mississippi and an electrical power plant installed 
(1913) capable of generating 200,000 horse-power and sup- 
plying points as far away as St. Louis. The transportation of 
the ever-increasing volume of the world's products was made 
possible by the construction of more powerful locomotives and 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 



575 



larger ships, The ocean liners continued to grow in size 
until they reached a length of more than 900 feet and at- 
tained a capacity for carrying a burden of 50,000 tons. Land 
transportation profited greatly by the invention of the auto- 
mobile. For some time the United States lagged behind the 
other nations in the use and manufacture of automobiles but 
about 1900 the new form of locomotion began to meet with 
favor and its manufacture on a large scale was undertaken, 
with the result that in 1913 we were making a quarter of a 




The Imperator coming into New York Harbor. 

million of automobiles worth a quarter of a billion of dollars. 
Aerial transportation began to receive serious attention in 
1896 when Professor Langley of the Smithsonian Institution, 
with a flying-machine driven by a small steam-engine, made 
a flight of about three-fourths of a mile over the Potomac 
River near Washington. In 1903 Messrs. Orville and Wilbur 
Wright of Dayton, Ohio, constructed an aeroplane which 
made a successful flight of 852 feet. Two years later an 
aeroplane of the Wright brothers made a flight of 24 miles. 



576 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

After this, interest in flying machines grew more intense, with 
the result that by 1913 aviation had reached a pitch at which 
long aerial flights were made with some degree of safety and 
the aeroplane was being seriously considered as a necessary 
implement of war. Long distance communication was ad- 
vanced in a marvelous manner by the invention of wireless 
telegrai:)hy. In 1901 William Marconi sent a signal across 
the Atlantic Ocean without a cable. By 19 14 the entire globe 




J 

Pluitopraphod by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

A modern aeroplane. 

was encircled with a series of wireless stations, and all the 
principal steamships of the world were provided with the 
wireless apparatus.^ Even express trains dashing along at 
great speed, and aeroplanes in their flight were kept in touch 
with each other by means of wireless messages. So efficient 

1 A striking illustration of the great usefulness of wireless telegraiihy was 
given in the case of the Titanic disaster. At midnight, April 14, IQ12, the 
Titanic, the largest and finest ship afloat, collided with an enormous iceberg 
off the Newfoundland coast and sank in 2,700 fatlioms of water. As the ship 
was sinking wireless messages were sent out with the result that the Carpathia 
appeared upon the scene in time to save about 700 persons. Before the Cor- 
pathia arrived, however, more than 1,600 persons had been drowned. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 577 

had this means of communication become that in 191 3 it was 
possible to flash a wireless telegram from Washington to Paris. 
Much of the material progress made between igoo and The 

1 1 r^ • 1 r , • Concentrar 

1912 was due to the emciency and power of concentrated capi- tionof 
tal. The industrial and commercial combinations which had 
made such headway when Mr. Roosevelt entered upon the 
Presidency continued to increase in number and to involve 
larger and larger amounts of capital. In 19 14 two hundred 
corporations owned $22,500,000,000 worth of property in the 
United States, a sum considerably greater than the value 
of all the property in the country in i860 (p. 434). In 1900 
the total capitalization of the industrial Trusts was $3,650,000,- 
000; in 1905 it was $6,800,000,000; in 191 1 it was $8,000,000,- 
000. 

But concentration was not confined to industrial con- The 
cerns : there was concentration in the control of money and Report 
credit. According to the Pujo Report which was submitted 
to the House of Representatives in 1913, the firm members 
and directors in six banking institutions ^ in New York City 
held: 

" One hundred and eighteen directorships in 34 banks and 
trust companies having total resources of $2,679,000,000 and 
total deposits of $1,983,000,000. 

" Thirty directorships in 10 insurance companies having 
total assets of $2,293,000,000. 

" One hundred and five directorships in 32 transportation 
systems having a total capitalization of $11,784,000,000 and 
a total mileage (excluding express companies and steamship 
lines) of 150,200. 

" Sixty-three directorships in 24 producing and trading 
corporations having a total capitalization of $3,339,000,000. 

" Twenty- five directorships in 12 public utility corporations 
having a total capitalization of $2,150,000,000. 

1 For a diagram showing in graphic form how these institutions are interre- 
lated and affiliated with the larger railroad, industrial, and public utility corpora- 
tions, and banks, trust companies, and insurance companies of the United States, 
see the Pujo Report. 



5/8 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Rate Law 
of 
1906 



The 
Pure 
Food 
Law 



"In all, 341 directorships in 112 corporations having ag- 
gregate resources or capitalization of $22,245,000,000." 

i8j. the ROOSEVELT POLICIES (1905-1909). 

With the opening of the twentieth century the people 
hegan to look more and more to the national government as 
the agency that was to remedy economic evils and it was the 
policy of President Roosevelt to use the federal power for the 
regulation of commerce and industry wherever they could not 
be regulated by the State. He urged that Congress should 
exercise its power over interstate commerce and bring the 
railroads under proper control. In 1903 the Elkins Law for- 
bidding rebates was passed. But this was not enough. It 
was necessary not only that the rates be uniform as between 
different persons, but that they also be just and reasonable in 
all cases. Since under the law of 1887 the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission did not have the power to fix rates 
(P- 527) Congress in 1906 passed the Hepburn Act which 
gave the Commission, upon the complaint of an interested 
shipper (or passenger), the power to do away with a rate 
which it regarded as unjust or unreasonable, and to fix a new 
rate which it regarded as just and reasonable. The law 
broadened the term " common can ier " so as to bring under 
the power of the Commission not only railroads but express 
companies, sleeping-car companies and pipe-lines carrying 
oil. It also prohibited railroads from engaging in the busi- 
ness of mining iron or coal, or producing commodities which 
they were accustomed to carry as freight. This " commodity 
clause," however, was rendered practically ineffective (in 
1908) by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

Another regulation of interstate commerce urged by Presi- 
dent Roosevelt referred to the sale of foods and drugs. Drug 
manufacturers and food companies had been supplying the 
public with adulterated and impure articles to such an extent 
that the practice had become dangerous to the public health. 
So Congress (in June, 1906) passed the Pure Food Act which 



' A PROGRESSIVE ERA 579 

imposed a penalty for using poisonous or otherwise injurious 
substances in the adulteration of articles shipped from one 
■ State to another and forbade the false labeling and branding 
i of goods. Under this law it is permissible to sell adulterated 
i goods, but the nature of the adulteration must be stated so 
i that the public may know precisely what it is buying. 

President Roosevelt was especially zealous in his efforts to The 

. . Conser* 

conserve our natural resources. It had been the habit of past vation 

• , r i Policy 

administrations to deal with the mines, and forests and water- 
power sites of the national" domain in a lavish and wasteful 
manner. Roosevelt changed this policy of wastefulness to 
one of careful conservation. He set on foot plans for re- 
claiming by irrigation vast areas of arid lands ; he checked de- 
forestation by adding many millions of acres to the forest re- 
serves ; he prosecuted and brought to punishment men who 
were unlawfully seizing the public lands. In 1908 he called 
a conference of governors and of other prominent public men 
to discuss the subject of conservation and as an outcome of 
this conference popular and official interest in the movement 
, for conservation was stimulated in a remarkable degree. 

When President Roosevelt received the news of his sue- The 

. . . Nominees 

cess in the election of 1904 he gave out a written statement and the 
saying: "On the fourth of March next I shall have served in 1908 
three and one-half years and this three and one-half years 
constitutes my first term. The wise custom which limits the 
, President to two terms regards the substance and not the form. 
Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept 
another nomination." Nevertheless, in 1908 great pressure 
was brought to bear upon Roosevelt to stand for reelection. 
He refused, however, to be a candidate. He lent his support 
to the candidacy of William Howard Taft of Ohio, who re- 
ceived the Republican nomination. The Democrats for the 
third time nominated William Jennings Bryan and the 
. Socialists for the third time nominated Eugene V. Debs. The 
J Republican platform declared for a revision of the tariff but 
,l did not indicate whether the revision was to raise or lower 
the rates. The Democratic platform declared that the ques- 



58o 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 

Campaign 
of 
1908 



tion "Shall the people rule?" was the overshadowing issue 
of the campaign. In reference to the Trusts the platform 
said : " We favor the vigorous enforcement of the criminal 
law against guilty trust magnates and officials and demand 
the enactment of such additional legislation as may be neces- 
sary to make it impossible for a private 
monopoly to exist in the United States." 
The platform of the Socialists declared 
for the collective ownership of the 
means of transportation and also of 
those industries which were organized 
on a national scale and in which com- 
petition no longer existed. It also de- 
clared for a graduated inheritance and 
income tax ; for the initiative, referen- 
dum, and recall ; for the abolition of the 
Senate ; for an easier method of amend- 
ing the Constitution ; for the election of judges for short terms 
by a popular vote. 

The campaign of 1908 was a listless affair and was not in 
all respects a creditable incident in the history of party poli- 
tics. There was no clear-cut issue, the discussions were for 
the most part either vague or evasive, and the general trend 
of the campaign was to emphasize personalities rather than 
principles. In the East Mr. Bryan found himself opposed by 
the capitalistic forces ; in the West he had to face the great 
po])ularity of President Roosevelt who entered into the cam- 
paign personally and fought with all his might for Mr. Taft. 
The result of the election was an overwhelming victory for 
Taft who received 321 electoral votes against 162 for Bryan. 
Of the popular vote Taft received 7,678,908; Bryan, 6,409,104; 
and Debs 420,792. 




Eugene V. Debs 



The 
Payne- 
Aldrich 
BiU 



183. THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT TAFT 
(i90£Hi9i3). 

Inasmuch as a pledge of tariff" revision was embodied in the 
Ivcpublican platform of 1908, the leaders of that party de- 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 



581 




William H. Taft. 



termined that the work of revision should be speedily under- 
taken. President Taft immediately after his inauguration 
(March 4, 1909) called an extra session of Congress for the 
sole purpose of framing a new 
tariff. On August 5 the Payne- 
Aldrich bill was passed. This bill 
was framed in accordance with the 
doctrine that " the true principle of 
protection is best maintained by the 
imposition of such duties as will 
equal the difference between the 
cost of production at home and 
abroad, together with a reasonable 
profit to American industries." 
The Aldrich bill, like the McKinley 
and the Dingley bills, simply con- 
tinued the policy of protecting the 
laborer and guaranteeing a profit 

to the manufacturer. On metals, lumber, and leather, the 
duties were somewhat reduced, but the rates of woolen goods 
(Schedule K) were left practically untouched. Upon hosiery 
and all the better grades of cotton goods the rates which pre- 
vailed under the Dingley bill were raised. The bill was a 
great disappointment to the people in a number of the West- 
ern States, where it was expected and hoped that tariff 
revision meant a substantial revision in a downward direc- 
tion. 

In June 1910, Congress passed an act establishing a system postal 
of Postal Savings banks, to be managed by the Post Office Baii 
department. These banks were designed for the purpose of 
providing an absolutely safe depository for the savings of 
thrifty people. In the postal banks deposits may be made by 
any person of ten years or over in savings of not less than 
one dollar to a total amount of not more than $500, the rate 
of interest being two per cent. Any depositor may exchange 
his deposits in sums of $20, $40, $60, $80, or $100, or multiples 
thereof for United States gold bonds of like denomination 



582 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



'1 



Parcel 
Post 



Oklahoma 



New 

Mexico, 

Arizona 



The 

Congres- 
sional 
Election 
of 
1910 



bearing 23/' per cent, interest, redeemable after one year and 
payable after twenty years. After four years' operation the 
deposits in Postal Savings banks reached a total of about $40,- 
000,000, the depositors numl^ering nearly 400,000. 

In August 19 1 2 Congress authorized the postal authorities 
to establish a domestic parcel post system. Accordingly in 
January 1913 the parcel post system was put into operation 
and in a year the business was so great that it was estimated 
that soon 1,000,000,000 parcels would be carried annually in 
the mails. 

During the Taft administration the federal organization of 
the contiguous territory of the United States was completed. 
The admission of Oklahoma as. a State was proclaimed by 
President Roosevelt. The stream of emigration which began 
to pour into the New Southwest in the early nineties (p. 530) 
flowed steadily, with the result that by 1900 the combined 
population of the so-called Indian Territory and Oklahoma 
Territory amounted to nearly 800,000. A protracted struggle 
to obtain statehood for Oklahoma ended in 1907 by uniting 
Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory and admitting the 
amalgamated community as the State of Oklahoma. When 
Oklahoma entered the Union it was already a great and power- 
ful State for its population was nearly 1,500,000 and its wealth 
was vast. Development in the New Southwest extended to 
New Mexico and Arizona, and by 1912 these Territories were 
ready for statehood and were admitted. With the admission 
of New Mexico and Arizona the story of the Westward Move- 
ment came to an end and the sisterhood of States was rounded 
out. 

In the Congressional campaign of 1910 it was plain that 
the Payne- Aldrich tariff was an unpopular measure and that 
the Republicans had a fight ahead of them. Ex-President 
Roosevelt, who had recently returned from a hunting-trip in 
Africa, threw himself into the campaign with the utmost vigor. 
He wished his party to adopt progressive principles and in 
the campaign he especially favored the Insurgents, a small 
body of Republicans in Congress who had opposed the pas- 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 583 

sage of the Payne-Aldrich tariff and who had set their faces 
against what they regarded as the idtra-conservative, "stand- 
pat " methods and doctrines of some of the RepubHcan leaders. 
At Osawatomie, Kansas, Roosevelt announced what he called 
the platform of " New Nationalism " in seventeen planks, 
some of which were far more radical than any that had been 
proposed by his party. The result of the election was a 
sweeping victory for the Democrats who carried such Republi- 
can strongholds as Massachusetts, Vermont, and Ohio, and 
secured a handsome majority in the House of Representa- 
'tives. 

Although President Taft was not regarded as a progressive, The 
his admmistration, nevertheless, was by no means barren of of 
progressive measures. In 1910 the Mann-Elkins Railway Act 
was passed. This law went further in the regulation of rail- 
roads than any law that had preceded it. Under the law of 
1906 (p. 578) the Commission could change rates only after 
complaint was made by the shipper. The law of 19 10 gives 
the Interstate Commerce Commission power to make investi- 
gations upon its own initiative and when it finds certain rates 
unjust to change them even though shippers have made no 
complaint. Also by the law of 1910 proposed new rates may 
be suspended in their operation by the order of the Commis- 
sion and they cannot go into efifect at all. Thus the Mann- 
Elkins law gives the Commission very great power in the 
regulation of railroad rates. The railroads, however, may in 
all cases appeal to the courts of the United States where the 
decision of the Commission is overruled if it is found that 
the rates in question are unjust or unreasonable. 

Another progressive measure of the Taft administration had The 
for its aim the regulation of contributions to campaign funds. °^ 
The lavish expenditure of campaign committees, amounting in runds 
some instances to several millions of dollars at a single elec- 
tion, caused the public to inquire into the origin of the funds. 
In 1908 the Democrats in their platform declared in favor of 
publishing both before and after election the names of the 
contributors to the campaign fund and the amounts con- 



584 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

tribtited. In 191 1 Congress, responding to the demand for 
publicity, passed a stringent act providing for the pubhcation 
before and after election of all receipts and expenditures of 
any candidate for a federal office and limiting the amount that 
might be lawfully expended. The law, however, did not re- 
strict the amount that might be expended in behalf of a candi- 
date by others or that might be contributed to the cami)aign 
funds of political parties. In 1912 Congress went further and 
provided for the publicity of receipts and expenditures in 
presidential primary elections. The movement for i)ublicity 
was not confined to federal elections for by 19 14 most of the 
States had enacted some sort of legislation providing for the 
publication of campaign expenditures and regulating the use 
of money at elections. 

President Taft's administration also showed a progressive 
spirit in the legal warfare which it waged against the Trusts. 
During President Roosevelt's administration the Department 
of Justice began ( 1906) in a federal Circuit Court a suit 
against the great Standard Oil Company on the ground that 
it was violating the Sherman Anti-Trust law. This suit was 
still unsettled at the end of Roosevelt's term, but it was pushed 
to completion by his successor. In 191 1 the case reached the 
Supreme Court of the United States and that tribunal decided 
that the Standard Oil Company was violating the Sherman 
Act and that it must be dissolved; that it must relinquish its 
control over the constituent companies, of which there were 
thirty-three, and give to each of these minor companies its 
proportional share of the stock. This was done and it was 
thought that a great victory was won over the Trusts. But 
it was not a very useful victory, for the small group of men 
who had controlled the consolidated company still controlled 
each of the independent companies and thus could prevent any- 
thing like vigorous competition. Two weeks after the de- 
cision in the Standard Oil case was handed down, a similar 
decision was handed down in the case of the American To- 
bacco Company, and that great trust was dissolved. Suits 
against the Harvester Trust and the Steel Trust were be- 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 585 

gun during Taft's administration, but were not brought to a 
close. 

184. THE ELECTION OF 1912. 
But the progressive measures of the Taft administration did TheCan- 

^ ^. . , didates 

not satisfy the insurgent RepubHcans, who by 1912 were calling C?''*^®,, 

themselves Progressives and were outspoken in their opposi- canNomt 
° . . ^ . nation 

tion to the renomination of President Taft. Prominent among 
the leaders of the Progressives was Senator Robert M. 
La Follette of Wisconsin, who had led a reform movement 
which had made his State a thoroughly progressive community. 
La Follette had an enthusiastic following among Progressive 
Republicans in parts of the West and Middle West, and re- 
lying upon this following for support he offered himself as a 
candidate for the Republican nomination. But there was also 
a strong sentiment among the Progressive Republicans that 
ex-President Roosevelt should be nominated. In February 
1912, the governors of seven States addressed a letter to 
Roosevelt declaring the belief *' that a large majority of 
the Republican voters of the country desired his nomination 
and a large majority of the people favored his election as 
the next President of the United States." Replying to this 
letter Roosevelt said he would accept the nomination if it 
were tendered to him. When this decision of Roosevelt was 
announced, Taft, who was a candidate for reelection, de- 
clared that nothing but death would prevent him from striv- 
ing to seciire the nomination. 

Thus the campaign for the Republican nomination opened The 

. . Campaign 

with three candidates in the field. The contest for delegates for the 

Republi- 
was exciting and at times acrimonious. When the Conven- canNomi 

tion met at Chicago (June 18) there was another bitter con- 
test over the seating of delegates. Out of 254 disputed seats 
235 were awarded to Taft men by the national committee 
which was controlled by anti-Roosevelt forces. The Roose- 
velt men charged fraud and when the action of the committee 
was sustained by the Convention Roosevelt advised his dele- 
gates to refrain from further participation in the proceedings. 



nation 



586 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The 
Demo- 
cratic 
Nomi- 
uation 



The Or- 
ganization 
of the 
Progres- 
sive Party 



On the first ballot for the nomination of a candidate Taft re- 
ceived 561 votes, La Follette 41, and Roosevelt 106, the votes 
of 19 delegates being scattered and 344 having refrained from 
voting. So President Taft received the nomination, but it was 
clear that the Republican party was split in twain. 

Three days after the adjournment of the Republican Con- 
vention the Democratic National Convention met at Balti- 
more. The pre-convention campaign of the Democrats had 
been quiet and uneventful, but the convention itself was a 

stormy affair. A large portion of 
the delegates desired a conservative 
candidate and a conservative plat- 
form. Another large portion de- 
sired a progressive candidate and a 
progressive platform. After a long 
struggle the progressive element un- 
der the leadership of Mr. Bryan, 
who was a member of the Conven- 
tion, gained the ascendency. The 
four most prominent candidates be- 
fore the Convention were Judson 
Harmon, of Ohio, Oscar Under- 
wood of Alabama, Champ Clark of 
Missouri, and Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. On the tenth 
ballot Clark received the votes of a majority of the delegates 
but as the two-third rule (p. 347) was still in force this did 
not constitute a choice. The voting continued until the forty- 
sixth ballot was taken when Wilson was nominated by a vote 
of 990, Clark receiving 84 and Harmon 12. 

At the close of the Republican convention the Roosevelt 
forces resolved to organize a new party. Accordingly, Au- 
gust 5, 191 2, a convention met at Chicago and organized 
the Progressive party, selecting ex-President Roosevelt as the 
candidate for President and adopting a platform declarative 
of the principles of the party. The Progressive platform re- 
sembled in many respects the one adopted by the Democrats. 
Some of the declarations of the new party were, however, 




William Jenningps Bryan. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 587 

highly significant. One of the planks declared for national 
jurisdiction " over the problems which have expanded beyond 
the reach of the individual States," a formal statement of the 
doctrine of " new nationalism." Another plank demanded 
" national regulation of interstate corporations through a 
permanent federal commission." 

The Socialists, for the fourth time, nominated Mr. Debs JJ^jj^ug^g 
and declared substantially for the social and political reforms 
which they had demanded in previous campaigns (p. 580). 

The campaign of 19 12 was characterized by excitement and Campaign 
uproar but the issues at stake were by no means clearly de- ^^gj^g^ 
fined. The question which received the most attention was 
the tarifif. Upon this subject the Democrats declared for a 
tariff for revenue only on the ground that a protective tariff 
is unconstitutional (p. 312). The Republicans declared for 
the " maintenance of a protective tariff with a reduction of 
duties that may be too high." The Progressives demanded 
" immediate downward revision of those schedules where 
duties are shown to be unjust or excessive." The result was 
a sweeping Democratic victory. Of the 531 electoral votes 
Wilson received 435, Roosevelt 88, and Taft 8. The popular 
vote was 6,290,818 for Wilson, 4,123,206 for Roosevelt, 
3,484,529 for Taft and 898,296 for Debs, Thus the great Re- 
publican party which had governed the country so long went 
down in defeat. 



President 
Wilson's 
Program 



XLVI 
THE WILSON ADMINISTRATION. 

During the years of the Wilson administration there was unusual 
activity in federal legislation and domestic reforms, while the inter- 
national problems of the period were far more serious than any that 
had yet confronted the American people. 

185. THREE GREAT LAWS. 
On March 4, 1913, President Wilson in the presence of the 
largest throng that ever assembled in front of the Capitol de- 
livered an inaugural address that was brief, eloquent, and 
lofty in sentiment. Referring to the change which had 
brought the Democrats into power the President said : " It 
means much more than the mere success of a party. The 
success of a party means little except when the Nation is 
using that party for a large and definite purpose." The pur- 
poses which the President had in mind were foreshadowed in 
the following words, " We have itemized with some degree of 
particularity the things that ought to be altered and here are 
some of them : A tariff which cuts us from our proper part 

in the commerce of the world, vio- 
lates ^he just principles of taxation, 
and makes the Government a facile 
instrument in the hands of private 
interests ; a banking and currency 
system based upon the necessity of 
the Government to sell its bonds 
fifty years ago and perfectly 
adapted to concentrating cash and 
restricting credits ; an industrial 
system, which, take it on all its 
sides — financial as well as admin- 
istrative — holds capital in leading- 
strings, restricts the liberties and 
limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits, without renew- 
ing or conserving, the national resources of the countrv." It 
was plain that the President expected his party to take definite 
action upon the tariff question, upon the currency question, and 
upon the trust question. 588 




Woodrow Wilson. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA S89 

The tariff question was the first to be taken up. On April The^^^ 
7, President Wilson assembled Congress in extra-session and ^^°^^ 
on the following day read his message from the Speaker's 
desk to the members of both houses, urging upon them the 
necessity of a prompt, effective, and downward revision of 
the tariff. Congress responded to the wishes of the Presi- 
dent and (October 1913) passed the Underwood tariff. This 
law reduced the rates on nearly a thousand articles of im- 
port. The rates on cotton goods were cut from 45 per cent, 
to 30 per cent. The rates on woolen goods (Schedule K) 
were reduced far below the high mark of the Payne tariff 
(p. 581), but as a compensation to manufacturers wool was 
admitted free of duty. Sugar also was put upon the free 
list. Taking the bill as a whole the Underwood bill reduced 
the general average of tariff rates greatly below what they had 
been under the Payne-Aldrich Bill. 

One of the clauses of the Underwood bill imposed an in- 5:ax™* 
come tax (160) of i per cent, per annum upon every citizen of 
the United States, whether residing at home or abroad, and 
upon every person residing in the United States though not a 
citizen thereof. In computing the tax a deduction of $3,000 
was made in the case of persons living alone, and a deduction of 
$4,000 in the case of persons living in the marriage relation. 
The law also imposed an " additional income tax of i per cent, 
per annum upon the amount by which the total net income 
exceeds $20,000 and does not exceed $50,000, and 2 per cent, 
per annum upon the amount by which the total net income 
exceeds $50,000 and does not exceed $75,000, 3 per cent, per 
annum upon the amount by which the total net income exceeds 
$75,000 and does not exceed $100,000, 4 per cent, per annum 
upon the amount by which the total net income exceeds $100,- 
000 and does not exceed $250,000, 5 per cent, per annum upon 
the amount by which the total net income exceeds $250,000 and 
does not exceed $500,000 and 6 per cent, per annum upon the 
amount by which the total net income exceeds $500,000." In 
i<ji6 these rates were greatly increased, the underlying or 



590 



ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 



The Fed- 
eral Re- 
serve Act 



The Clay- 
ton Trust 
Bill; the 
Federal 
Trade Com- 
mission. 



normal tax being doubled, and the additional tax being made 
much heavier. 

Currency reform, the second of the measures proposed by 
the President, was dealt with by the Federal Reserve Act, 
enacted by Congress in 1913. The purpose of this act was 
first, to bring about a more even diffusion throughout the 
country of th': money that is already in circulation ; and, sec- 
)nd, to make from time to time such changes in the existing 
volume of currency as the conditions of trade may rc(iuire. 
Under the act the United States has been marked off geograph- 
ically into twelve districts, and in one of the cities in each dis- 
trict there has been established a federal reserve bank. The 
cities having federal reserve banks are: Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. 
Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City (Mo.), Dallas and San 
Francisco. The members and owners of a federal reserve 
bank are the national banks within the district and such State 
banks and trust companies as may choose to join under the 
conditions laid down by the law. A federal reserve bank is a 
bank of banks : its depositors are the member banks, and its 
deposits consist of a certain specified portion of the reserve 
fund which the member banks within the district are required 
by law to keep in their possession for the safety of their cus- 
tomers. The borrowers from a reserve bank are the member 
banks within the district. Addition to the present volume of 
currency may be made under the Act of 191 3 by the issuance 
of federal reserve notes by any federal reserve bank that 
desires to issue such notes, but all such issues must be made 
with the sanction of the Federal Reserve Board which has 
full control over the operations of the federal reserve banks. 
The Federal Reserve Board, created by the Federal Reserve 
Act, consists of five members, appointed by the President and 
of two ex-officio members, the Secretary of the Treasury and 
the Comptroller of the Currency. 

The trust problem received an attempted solution by the 
passage of the Clayton Trust bill and by the establishment of 
a Federal Trade Commission. The Clavton law, enacted in 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 59i 

1913, is intended to supplement and strengthen the Sherman 
Anti-Trust Act (p. 534) and is in express terms aimed at 
monopoly. The law makes it unlawful for any concern to 
discriminate in price between different purchasers where the 
effect of such discrimination is substantially to lessen com- 
petition or create a monopoly in any line of trade, and it for- 
bids corporations to engage in certain practices which have a 
tendency to foster monopoly. The Federal Trade Commis- 
sion, created in 1914, is composed of five members appointed 
by the President. The law creating the commission declared 
unfair methods of competition to be unlawful and the commis- 
sion was given power to prevent persons, partnerships and 
corporations (excepting the companies controlled by other 
agencies; namely, banks and railroads) from using unfair 
methods in trade. 

186. GRAVE INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS. 
In the second year of the Wilson administration the National 
Government was brought face to face with grave and trouble- 
some problems of an international character. Most of these sinking ot 

1 • 1 1 T^ . , Lusitania 

were connected with the European war, which broke out in 
August, 1914. Of the many difficulties which arose out of 
that struggle the most serious were with Germany. In May, 
1915, a German submarine attacked the Lusitania, a British 
merchantman, and without any warning sent the great liner 
to the bottom of the sea. Of those who lost their lives, more 
than one hundred were American citizens. According to the 
rules of international law no merchantship, whether a bel- 
ligerent or a neutral, can lawfully be sunk unless warning has 
first been given and the safety of the passengers on board 
provided for. The sinking of the Lusitania, therefore, was a 
breach of the law of nations which our Government could not 
ignore or condone. President Wilson informed Germany that 
if her submarines should sink any more merchant ships with- 
out warning and thereby destroy the lives of more Americans, 
the Government of the United States would hold the German 
Government responsible for the act. But this protest did not 



592 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

cause Germany to desist. Her submarines continued to sink 
m.erchant vessels without warning and more American 
lives were lost. Accordingly, in April, 1916, President Wilson 
sent an ultimatum to Germany on the subject of submarine 
warfare. He demanded of the German Government that it 
order the commanders of its submarines to desist from the 
sinking of merchantmen without lirst providing for the safety 
of persons on board, and declared that if Germany should fail 
to do this diplomatic relations between the (jerman Govern- 
ment and the Government of the United States would be 
severed. Upon receiving this ultimatum Germany yielded and 
promised to conduct her submarine warfare in accordance 
with the established rules of international law, but at the same 
time made the statement that if in the future the other bel- 
ligerent nations should fail in their observance of the rules of 
international law she would then be facing a new situation in 
which she must reserve for herself complete liberty of decision. 
President Wilson accepted the declaration of the German 
Government, but made it clear that his demand for the observ- 
ance of American rights upon the sea would not in the slight- 
est degree be contingent upon the action of any other govern- 
ment. "Responsibility," he said, "in such matters is single, 
not joint ; absolute, not relative." 
Trouble While our Government was wrestling with Germany it was 

Mexico. ,^j^Q having a deal of trouble with our next-door neighbor at 
the south. The trouble with Mexico began even before Presi- 
dent Wilson was inaugurated. In February, 191 3, Francisco 
Madero, the President of Mexico, was assassinated, where- 
upon General Victoriano Huerta seized control of the Mexican 
(jovernment. The question of recognizing Huerta's authority 
was at once brought up to the Government at W^ashington, 
but President Taft, preferring to leave the matter to his suc- 
cessor, declined either to give or formally withhold recogni- 
tion. President Wilson flatly refused to recognize Huerta on 
the ground that he was a usurper. This opinion was shared by 
a large body of Mexicans who were in revolt against the 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 593 

authority of Huerta, the leaders of the revolution being Venus- 
tiano Carranza and Francisco Villa. The revolution was- 
accompanied by much bloodshed and in the turmoil many 
Americans living in Mexico were killed and their property 
destroyed. Our Government, therefore, found itself con- 
fronted with the problem of protecting the interests of our 
citizens in a country engaged in civil strife. From the begin- 
ning, President Wilson pursued a policy which he character- 
ized as one of "watchful waiting," his aim being to keep a 
watchful eye upon American interests in Mexico, but to wait 
patiently for the revolution to run its course without bringing 
the United States into the fray. The underlying purpose of 
the President was to give the Mexicans an opportunity to 
work out their own political salvation and set up for them- 
selves a stable and constitutional government. The policy of 
"watchful waiting" was adhered to with great tenacity, but 
in its immediate results it was disquieting and unsatisfactory. 
Many times during the revolution American interests suf- 
fered because there was no strong hand to protect them, and 
more than once there was armed intervention which brought 
little, if any, relief. The outcome of the struggle was a vic- 
tory for the revolutionists. In the summer of 191 5 Huerta 
was overthrown. Carranza seized the reins of power, and 
within a few months he was recognized by the United States 
and several other countries as the head of the provisional gov- 
ernment of Mexico. But this did not end the trouble, for in 
March, 1916, Villa, who by this time had turned against Car- 
ranza, led a band of outlaws across the Mexican border into 
New Mexico and killed nine American citizens. A large force 
of American soldiers was now sent into Mexico to capture 
and punish Villa and his band. But this punitive expedition 
accomplished but little, for Villa eluded his pursuers and 
remained at large. Although Carranza was unable wholly to 
suppress lawlessness, his government, nevertheless, gradually 
acquired a measure of strength and stability. In the autumn 
of 1917 Carranza was formally recognized by the United 



Prohibi- 



594 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

States as the rightful President of the Mexican Repubhc, and 
diplomatic relations between the two countries were resumed. 
187. PROGRESS IN REFORM. 
sliffTag" While foreign affairs were in such a turbulent condition 

the minds of the people were naturally deflected somewhat 
from matters of domestic concern. After the outbreak of 
the great war in 1914, the Progressive movement lost much 
of its strength and the Progressive Party crumbled to pieces. 
Still, the war did not completely check the progress of reform. 
The cause of woman suffrage continued to be urged by its 
champions. As a result Montana, Nevada and New York were 
added to the list of the States which have adopted equal suf- 
frage (p. 571), while partial suffrage for women was gained 
in several other States. The movement for prohibiting the 
sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors was carried for- 
ward at a startling rate. To the eight States (Maine, Kansas, 
North Dakota, Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee Mississippi 
North Carolina), which were already under State-wide pro- 
hibition by 1914, there were added between 1914 and 191 7, 
West Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, Virginia, Colorado, Oregon, 
Washington, Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho, South Carolina, Ne- 
braska, South Dakota, Michigan and Montana. 

While the war absorbed a large share of the attention of 
Congress domestic affairs were by no means wholly neglected. 
Indeed, while the war in Europe was raging some very im- 
portant federal statutes were placed upon the books. The Fed- 
eral-Aid Road Act, carrying an appropriation of $75,000,000, 
to be expended over a five-year period in the construction of 
highways in the several States, was passed (1916) with the 
view of lending the assistance of the National Government to 
the good-roads movement which has been carried forward so 
Ci«dL rapidly since the appearance of the automobile. The Rural 
P'"- Credits bill (1916) provides for a system of federal land 

banks at which farmers who own land may borrow mone}- 
when they need it for certain purposes connected with the 
occupation of farming. At these land banks farmers may 



Federal Aid 
Road Act. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 



595 



borrow money upon easy; terms and pay off the debt, both 
principal and interest, in fixed small sums. The Federal 



KEXtO 




jrC^rv tl'S^^'^ir?'"'' i'l-^'Ty'^r \-^f*"U\'j-'* ♦ ^..funu 




Courtesy of "The Independent" 

The Danish West Indies 

Eight-Hour Act provides for a standard eight-hour working 
day for employees on interstate railroads, provided such em- 
ployees are actually engaged in any capacity in the operations 
of trains. When the employees are of necessity obliged to 
work for more than eight hours their pay for overtime must The Fed- 

° . cal Eight- 

be calculated on an eight-hour basis. This law was hurried Hour Act. 

through Congress in the summer of 1916 with whip and spur 
in order to avert a strike which threatened to tie up practically 
every railroad in the country and bring calamity to the entire 
nation. Loud and angry protests followed the passage of the 
Eight-hour law and the dissatisfaction with it was wide- 
spread. But after the measure was adjudged by the Supreme 
Court of the United States to be constitutional the opposition 
to it gradually subsided. As a matter of fact Congress in 
passing the law was merely yielding to the force of an eight- 
hour movement which at the time was sweeping over the 
country and affecting almost every industry. 



596 • ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

National But tiiore important than any of the acts mentioned above 
Defense ^^^^^ ^|^^ j,^^^ providing for a more efficient national defense. 
In December, 1915, President Wilson urged upon Congress 
the necessity of raising an army and navy much larger than 
the country had ever had in times of peace. Congress con- 
curred fully in the views of the President and went far beyond 
his recommendations. It passed (August, 1916), a national 
Defense Act which provided for raising the Regular Army 
to a peace strength of 208,000 men and 11,000 officers, and 
the National Guard to 440,000 men and 17,000 officers, thus 
making a total peace strength of about 650,000 men and 
28,000 officers, an army vastly larger than America ever 
dreamed of having in times of peace. Moreover, appropria- 
tions were made for increasing the navy to a size which at the 
time seemed dazzling in its bigness. 
The Virgin As a further measure of preparedness the United States 

Islands. _ ' ' 

in the spring of 191 7 purchased from Denmark the Danish 
West Indies (now known as the Virgin Islands). These 
islands were secured in order that they may serve as a naval 
station and as a base for naval oj)erations in the Caribbean. 
In matters of government they arcj under the direct control 
of the Navy Department, 
^ectton'of' While those far-reaching measures of preparedness were 
1916. before Congress a presidential election was drawing near. 

When the time came in 1916 for naming candidates for the 
Presidency the Democrats nominated President Wilson for a 
second term. The Republicans nominated Charles E. Hughes 
of New York and his nomination was endorsed by many of 
the leading Progressives. The Socialists nominated Allan L. 
Benson of New York. The nominee of the Prohibitionists 
was J. Frank Hanly of Indiana. Mr. Wilson received 274 
electoral votes and Mr. Hughes 257. 

188. WAR WITH GERMANY. 
When President Wilson entered upon his second term the 
country was moving rapidly toward war. On February i. 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 



59/ 




PuEsiDENT Wilson Delivering His War Message Before Joint Session 
OF Congress on Monday Night, April 2, 1917. 



598 ADVANCED AMERICAN HISTORY 

1917, our Government was informed l)v the German Govern- 
warwith nient that its submarines would begin immediately to sink mer- 
.rmany. ^.i^<^,-j^„-,gj-j witliout first providing for the safety of persons 
on board. Upon receiving this information the President 
promptly severed diplomatic relations with Germany and ap- 
])eared before Congress with the declaration that it was his 
purpose to defend our rights even to the extent of war. Ger- 
many, in accordance with her threats, renewed the submarine 
warfare, and more American ships were sunk, and more Amer- 
ican lives were taken. President Wilson now decided for war. 
On April 2, he addressed Congress in these words : "With a 
])rofound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of 
the step I am taking, and of the grave responsibilities which 
it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my 
constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the 
recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in 
fact nothing less than war against the Government and people 
of the United States ; that it formally accept the status of 
belligerent which has been thrust upon it, and that it take 
immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thor- 
ough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and em- 
ploy all its resources to bring the Government of the German 
Empire to terms and end the war." The response of Congress 
came swiftly and in whole-hearted manner. Within three 
days both Houses had agreed upon a joint-resolution recog- 
nizing the existence of a state of war with Germany and au- 
thorizing the President to use the entire military and naval 
forces of the country to prosecute the war. The vote on the 
resolution in the Senate was 82 to 6; in the House of Repre- 
sentatives the vote was 373 to 50. And the call to arms met 
with the warm response of the whole country, for the people 
felt with the President that the German Government had 
run amuck in the world and that its power ought to be broken, 
iadoi!'^*"" -^°^ ^'^ months after the declaration of war Congress was 
engaged in the task of war legislation. Before it adjourned in 
October, 1917, it had appropriated nearly $17,000,000,000 for 



A PROGRESSIVE ERA 599 

war expenditures, and for loans to foreign nations engaged in 
the war against Germany ; it had provided for the immediate 
creation of a gigantic merchant marine ; it had given the 
President almost absolute control over the means of trans- 
portation and over the industries that support the war, espe- 
cially over the production and distribution of food and fuel ; 
it had provided against espionage and other acts endangering 
national safety in times of war ; it had enacted the greatest 
war revenue bill ever presented to the taxpayers of a nation 
in all the history of legislation, the sum levied being in excess 
of two and a half billions of dollars. But the most important 
item of war legislation was the Selective Draft Act. This 
provided for a general registration of all young men who had 
reached their twenty-first, but not their thirty-first, birthday, 
the purpose of the registration being to secure an enrollment 
of names from which to draft (p. 465) soldiers for the army 
which was to be thrown against Germany. 

And now the economic and industrial forces of the nation War 

Activities. 

were rapidly organized and directed to the single purpose of 
winning the war. Ship building was carried forward with a 
swiftness and on a scale never before heard of ; food produc- 
tion was stimulated ; the prices of fuel, and to some extent, 
those of food, were fixed by the Government ; money for war 
expenses was borrowed and millions of patriotic citizens 
bought Liberty Bonds amounting to many billions of dollars ; 
the Red Cross Society was supplied liberally with funds for 
carrying on its beneficent work ; and, most important of all, 
an army of vast proportions was raised. By the end of June, 
1918, a million and a half of soldiers were under the colors 
and more than seven hundred thousand were in France fight- 
ing for the ideals of freedom and justice that are so dear to 
the American heart. 



APPENDIX A 
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect r 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the 
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America. 

ARTICLE I 

Section i. All legislative pow^ers herein granted shall be vested in 
a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 2 
House of Representatives. 

Section 2. i The House of Representatives shall be composed of 
members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, 3 
and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for 4 
electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature. 

2 No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained 

to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the 5 
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of 6 
that State in which he shall be chosen. 

3 Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the 
several States which may be included within this Union, according to 7 
their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the 
whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a 
term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other 8 
persons. 1 The actual enumeration shall be made within three years 
after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within 9 
every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by 
law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for 10 
every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representa- 
tive ; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New 
Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode II 
Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five. New York 
six. New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland 
six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia 
three. 

1 The last half of this sentence was superseded by the 13th and 14th Amendments. 
(See p. 614, following.) 

601 



Oo-J APPENDIX A 

12 4 When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the 
executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such 
vacancies, 

13 5 The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and 

14 other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Section 3. i The Senate of the United States shall be composed 

15 of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof for 
six years ; and each senator shall have one vote. 

2 Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the 
first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. 
The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the ex- 
piration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of 
the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth 

16 year, so that one third may be chosen every second year ; and if vacan- 
cies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legis- 
lature of any State, the executive thereof may make temporary 

17 appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then 
fill such vacancies. 

3 No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the 

18 age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, 

19 and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for 
which he shall be chosen. 

4 The Vice President of the United States shall be President of 

20 the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

5 The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a president 

21 pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall 
exercise the office of President of the United States. 

6 The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. 
When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. 
When the President of the United States is tried, the chief justice shall 

22 preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of 
two thirds of the members present. 

7 Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than 
to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office 
of honor, trust or profit under the United States : but the party con- 

23 victed shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judg- 
ment and punishment, according to law. 

Section. 4. i The times, places, and manner of holding elections 
for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by 

24 the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make 
or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators. 

2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such 

25 meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall 
by law appoint a different day. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 603 

Section 5. i Each House shall be the judge of the elections, 26 
returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each 
shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may 27 
adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance 
of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each 
House may provide. 

2 Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish 28 
its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of two 29 
thirds, expel a member. 

3 Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from 
time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their 
judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of 
either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those 30 
present, be entered on the journal. 

4 Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without 
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to 31 
any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. 

Section 6. i The senators and representatives shall receive a 
compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out 32 
of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except 
treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during 23 
their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going 
to and returning from the same ; and for any speech or debate in either 
House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 

2 No senator or representative shall, during the time for which 
he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of 34 
the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments 
whereof shall have been increased during such time ; and no person 
holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either 35 
House during his continuance in office. 

Section 7. l All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the 36 
House of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with 
amendments as on other bills. 

2 Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives ;i7 
and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the 
President of the United States ; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not 38 
he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall 
have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their jour- 
nal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two 
thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, to- 39 
gether with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise 
be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall 40 
become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both Houses shall be 
determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting 



6o4 APPENDIX A 

for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House 
respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 

41 ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to 
him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, 
unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which 
case it shall not be a law. 

42 3 Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the 
Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a 

43 question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the 
United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved 
by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of 
the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and 
limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 

44 Section 8. i The Congress shall have power to lay and collect 
taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for 

45 the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but 
all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United 
States ; 

46 2 To borrow money on the credit of the United States; 

47 3 To regulate commerce, with foreign nations, and among the 
several States, and with the Indian tribes ; 

48 4 To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws 
on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; 

49 5 To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, 
and fix the standard of weights and measures; 

50 6 To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities 
and current coin of the United States; 

51 7 To establish post offices and post roads; 

8 To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing 

52 for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their 
respective writings and discoveries; 

53 9 To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; 

54 10 To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high 
seas, and offenses against the law of nations ; 

55 II To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make 
rules concerning captures on land and water; 

56 12 To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to 
that use shall be for a longer term than two years ; 

57 13 To provide and maintain a navy; 

58 14 To make rules for the government and regulation of the land 
and naval forces ; 

59 15 To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of 
the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions ; 

16 To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 605 

and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service 
of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment 
of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the 60 
discipline prescribed by Congress ; 

17 To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over 6r 
such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of 
particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of 
the government of the United States,^ and to exercise like authority 62 
over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State 

in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, 
dockyards, and other needful buildings; and 

18 To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 63 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or 

in any department or officer thereof. 

Section 9. l The migration or importation of such persons as 
any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred 
and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not 
exceeding ten dollars for each person.^ 

2 The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, 64 
unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may re- 
quire it. 

3 No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 65 

4 No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in propor- 66 
tion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken. 

5 No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 67 

6 No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or 
revenue to the ports of one State over those of another : nor shall ves- 68 
sels bound to, or from, one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay 
duties in another. 

7 No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence 69 
of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement and account 70 
of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published 
from time to time. 

8 No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no 71 
person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without 
the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, 
or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State. 

Section 10. i No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or 72 
confederation ; grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; emit 

1 The District of Columbia, which comes under these regulations, had not then 
been erected. 

2 A temporary clause, no longer in force. 



6o6 APPENDIX A 

bills of credit ; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in 

73 payment of debts ; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law 
impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 

2 No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any im- 

74 posts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely 
necessary for executing its inspection laws: and the net produce of all 

75 duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for 
the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be 
subject to the revision and control of the Congress. 

3 No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty 

76 of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any 
agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or 

/7 engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as 
will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II 

78 Section i. i The executive power shall be vested in a President 
of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the 

79 term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for 
the same term, be elected, as follows : 

80 2 Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof 
may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators 

81 and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: 
but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or 
profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot 

82 for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the 
same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the 
persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each ; which list 
they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the govern- 
ment of the United States, directed to the president of the Senate. The 
president of the Senate, shall, in the presence of the Senate and House 
of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be 

83 the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of 
electors appointed ; and if there be more than one who have such 
majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of 
Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for 
President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest 
on the list the said house shall in like manner choose the President. 
But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the 

84 representation from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this 
purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the 
States and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. 
In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 607 

greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. 85 
But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the 
Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.^ 

3 The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, 
and the day on which they shall give their votes ; which day shall be 
the same throughout the United States. 

4 No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United 86 
States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible 

to the office of President ; neither shall any person be eligible to that 
office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and 87 
been fourteen years a resident within the United States. 

5 In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, 
resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said 88 
office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress 
may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or 89 
inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what 
officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, 
until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. 

6 The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a 
compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during 90 
the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive 
within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any 

of them. 

7 Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the 
following oath or affirmation : — "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that 91 
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, 
and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the 
Constitution of the United States." 

Section 2. i The President shall be commander in chief of the 92 
army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several 
States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he 
may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of 93 
the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of 
their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves 94 
and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases 
of impeachment. 

2 He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present 95 
concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 96 
judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United 97 
States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and 
which shall be established by law : but the Congress may by law vest 98 

1 This paragraph superseded by the 12th Amendment, p, 613. 



6o8 APPENDIX A 

the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the 
President alone in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 
3 The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may 

99 happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which 
shall expire at the end of their next session. 

Section 3. lie shall from time to time give to the Congress in- 
formation of the state of the Union, and recommend to their con- 
sideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; 

100 he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of 
them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the 

loi time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall 
think proper ; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers ; 

102 he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall com- 
mission all the officers of the United States. 

103 Section 4. The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of 
the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, 

104 and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and mis- 
demeanors 

ARTICLE III 

Section i. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested 

105 in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may 
from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme 

106 and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and 
shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation which 
shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. 

Section 2. i The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law 
and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United 
States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; 

107 — to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls ; 
— to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; — to controversies 

108 to which the United States shall be a party ; — to controversies between 

109 two or more States; — between a State and citizens of another State ;'^ 
— between citizens of different States, — between citizens of the same 
State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a 
State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects. 

2 In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and 
consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court 

no shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, 
the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and 
fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress 
shall make. 

3 The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be 

1 See the nth .Amendment, p. 613. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 609 

by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes ill 
shall have been committed ; but when not committed within any State, 
the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law 
have directed. 

Section 3. i Treason against the United States, shall consist only 112 
in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving 
them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless 
on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on con- 113 
fession in open court. 

2 The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of 114 
treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or 
forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV 

Section i. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the 115 
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And 
the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such 
acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 

Section 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all priv- 116 
ileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

2 A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall 117 
on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled 

be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the 
crime. 

3 No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall 
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due.^ 

Section 3. i New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 118 
Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the juris- 
diction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction 
of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the 
legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. 

2 The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful 119 
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property be- 
longing to the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be 
so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any 
particular State. 

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in 120 
this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each 

1 See the 13th Amendment, p. 614. 



6xu APPENDIX A 

121 of them against invasion ; and on application of the legislature, or of 
the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic 
violence. 

ARTICLE V 

122 The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it 
necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the 
application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall 
call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, 
shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, 

123 when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States, 
or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode 
of ratification may be proposed by the Congress ; Provided that no 
amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses 
in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its 

124 consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI 

1 All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the 

125 adoi)tion of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States 
under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. 

2 This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be 

126 made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be 
made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law 

127 of the land ; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any- 
thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
standing. 

3 The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members 
of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, 
both of the United States, and of the several States, shall be bound by 

128 oath or affirmation to support this Constitution ; but no religious test 
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under 
the United States. 

ARTICLE VII 

129 The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying 
the same. 

Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the 
seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the 

130 United States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof we have 
hereunto subscribed our names. 

Go: Washington — 

Presidt. and Deputy from Virginia 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 



6ii 



Neiv U amp shire 
Jolin Langdon 
Nicholas Oilman 

Massachusetts 
Nathaniel Gorham 
Rut us King 

Connecticut 
Wm. Saml. Johnson 
Roger Sherman 

New York 
Alexander Hamilton 

Nciv Jersey 
Wil : Livingston 
David Brearley 
Wm. Paterson 
Jona : Dayton 

Pennsylvania 
B. Franklin 
Thomas Miiflin 
Robt. Morris 
Geo. Clymer 
Thomas Fitzsimons 
Jared Ingersoll 
James Wilson 
Gouv Morris 



Delaware 

Geo : Read 

Gunning Bedford Jun 
John Dickinson 
Richard Bassett 
Jaco : Broom 

Maryland 
James McHenry 
Dan of St. Thos Jenifer 
Danl. Carroll 

Virginia 
John Blair — 
James Madison Jr. 

North Carolina 
Wm. Blount 
Richd. Dobbs Spaight 
Hu Williamson 

South Carolina 

J. Rutledge 

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney 

Charles Pinckney 

Pierce Butler 



Georgia 



William Few 
Abr Baldwin 



Attest 
William Jackson Secretary. 

Articles in addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the 
United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by 
the legislatures of the several States pursuant to the fifth article of 
the original Constitution. 

ARTICLE 1 1 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 131 

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 1,32 

speech, or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, 133 
and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

1 The first ten Amendments were adopted in 1791. 



6i2 APPENDIX A 

ARTICLE II 

134 A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free 
Slate, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be 
infringed. 

ARTICLE III 

135 No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without 
the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be 
prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV 

136 The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, 
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported 
by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, 
and the persons or things to be seized. 

ARTICLE V 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise in- 

137 famous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, 
except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when 
in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person 
be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or 
limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against 

138 himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process 
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just 
compensation. 

ARTICLE VI 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a 

139 speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district 
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have 
been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and 
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; 

140 to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to 
have the assistance of counsel for his defense. 

ARTICLE VII 

141 In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed 
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact 
tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United 
States, than according to the rules of the common law. 

ARTICLE VIII 

142 Excessive liail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor 
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNTIED STATES 613 

ARTICLE IX 

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be 143 
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

ARTICLE X 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 144 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people. 

ARTICLE XI 1 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to 145 
extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against 
one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or 
subjects of any foreign State. 

ARTICLE XII 2 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot 146 
for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be 
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in 
their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots 147 
the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists 
of all persons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as 
Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they 
shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government 
of the United States, directed to the president of the Senate; — The 
president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House 
of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be 
counted; — The person having the greatest number of votes for President 
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole num- 
ber of electors appointed ; and if no person have such majority, then 
from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the 
list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall 
choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the Presi- 148 
dent, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each 
State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a 
member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of 
all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Repre- 
sentatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall 
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then 
the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or 
other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the 
greatest number of votes as Vice President shall be the Vice President, 
if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, 
and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers 

± Adopted in 1798. 2 Adopted in 1804. 



6l4 APPENUIX A 

on tlie list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a (luoruni for the 
purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of senators, 
and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But 
no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be 
eligible to that of Vice President of the United States. 

ARTICLE XIII ' 

149 Section i. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime whereof the parly shall have been duly convicted, 
shall exist within the Ihiited States, or any place subject to their juris- 
diction. 

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation. 

ARTICLE XIV- 

Section I. Ail persons born or naturalized in the United States, and 

150 subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and 

151 of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any 
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 

152 United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within 
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several 

153 States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole num- 
ber of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when 
the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President 
and Vice President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the 
executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legis- 
lature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, 
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in 
any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, 

154 the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion 
which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number 
of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 

Section 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Con- 
gress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold ony office, civil 
or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having 
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of 
the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an 
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of 
15s the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against 
the same, or given aid or comfort to the eneinies thereof. But Congress 
may by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

1 Adopted in 1865. 2 Adopted in 1868. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 615 

Section 4. The validity of the pubhc debt of the United States, 
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and 156 
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebeUion, shall not be 
questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or 157 
pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion 
against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of 
any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal 
and void. 

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate 158 
legislation, the provisions of this article. 

ARTICLE XVI 

Section i. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall 159 
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on 
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation. 

ARTICLE XVI 2 

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes 
from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the sev- 160 
eral States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. 

ARTICLE XVII 2 

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators 
from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years ; and each 161 
senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the 
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the 
State legislatures. 

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Sen- 
ate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election 
to fill such vacancies : Provided, That the legislature of any State may 
empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the 
people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. 

This amendment shall not be so construed as to afifect the election or 
term of any Senator chosen before it becomes vaHd as part of the Con- 
stitution. 

1 Adopted in 1870. 2 Adopted in 1913. 



APPENDIX B 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

In Congress, July 4, 1776, 

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate 
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle 
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, 
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that, whenever 
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the 
right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new govern- 
ment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers 
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety 
and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long 
established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, 
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed 
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolish- 
ing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train 
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces 
a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it 
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards 
for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these 
colonies ; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter 
their former systems of government. The history of the present king 
of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over 
these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary 
for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and press- 
ing importance, unless suspended in tlieir operation till his assent should 

616 



APPENDIX B 617 

be obtained ; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend 
to them. 

lie has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large dis- 
tricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of repre- 
sentation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to 
tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfort- 
able, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole 
purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with 
manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others 
to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, 
have returned to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remain- 
ing, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from with- 
out, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for 
that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; re- 
fusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising 
the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent 
to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of 
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of 
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the 
consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior 
to, the civil power. 

He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign 
to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent 
to their acts of pretended legislation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders 
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses : 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its 
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument 
for introducinsr the same absolute rule into these colonies : 



6i8 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEXDEXCE 

I'or taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and 
altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments : 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves in- 
vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protec- 
tion, and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and 
destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries 
to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, 
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most 
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, 
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their 
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored 
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, 
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all 
ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress 
in the most humble terms : our repeated petitions have been answered 
only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by 
every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free 
•people. 

Nor have' we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We 
have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature 
to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded 
them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We 
have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have 
conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these 
usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and cor- 
respondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and con- 
sanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which de- 
nounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, 
enemies in war, in peace friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 
in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by 
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 
declare. That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 
the British crown, and that all political connection between them and 
the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and 
that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, 



APPENDIX B 



6lQ 



conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all 
other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And 
for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protec- 
tion of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, 
our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 

John Hancock. 



New Hampshire 
Josiah Bartlett, 
Wm. Whipple, 
Matthew Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay 
Saml. Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robt. Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerry. 

Rhode Island 
Step. Hopkins, 
William Ellery. 

Connecticut 
Roger Sherman, 
Sam'el Huntington, 
Wm. Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

New York 
Wm. Floyd, 
Phil. Livingston, 
Frans. Lewis, 
Lewis Morris. 



Nezv Jersey 
Richd. Stockton, 
Jno. Witherspoon, 
Fras. Hopkinson, 
John Hart, 
Abra. Clark. 

Pennsylvania 
Robt. Morris, 
Benjamin Rush, 
Benja. Franklin, 
John Morton, 
Geo. Clymer, 
Jas. Smith, 
Geo. Taylor, 
James Wilson, 
Geo. Ross. 

Delazvare 
Caesar Rodney, 
Geo. Read, 
Tho. M'Kean. 

Maryland 
Samuel Chase, 
Wm. Paca, 
Thos. Stone, 



Charles Carroll of Car- 
rollton. 

Virginia 

George Wythe, 
Richard Henry Lee, 
Th Jefferson, 
Benja. Harrison, 
Thos. Nelson, jr., 
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 
Carter Braxton. 

North Carolina 
Wm. Hooper 
Joseph Hewes, 
John Penn. 

South Carolina 
Edward Rutledge, 
Thos. Heyward, Junr., 
Thomas Lynch, Junr., 
Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia 
Button Gwinnett, 
Lyman Hall, 
Geo. Walton. 



Resolved. That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several 
assemblies, conventions and committees, or councils of safety, and to 
the several commanding officers of the continental troops ; that it be 
proclaimed in each of the united States, at the head of the army. 



APPENDIX C 

LIST OF BOOKS TO WHICH REFERENCES 
ARE MADE 

Adams, George Burton, Civilisation During the Middle Ages. 
Andrews, Charles McLean, Colonial Self-Goventment. 

Babcock, Charles Kendrick, The Rise of American Nationality. 
Bassett, John Spencer, A Short History of the United States. 
BoGART, Ernest Ludlow, Economic History of the United States. 
Bourne, Edward Gaylord, Spain in America. 
Burgess, John William, The Civil War and the Constitution. 

Chadwick, French Ensor, Causes of the Civil War. 
Channing, Edward, A History of the United State. 3 vols. 
Cheyney, Edward Potts, European Background of American History. 
Coman, Katherine, Industrial History of the United States. 

Davis, Jefferson, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 
Dewey, Davis Rich, Financial History of the United States. 
Dexter, Edwin Grant, A History of Education in the United States. 
Dunning, William Archibald, Reconstruction, Political and Economic. 

Farrand, Livingston, Basis of American History. 
FoRMAN, Samuel Eagle, Advanced Civics. 

Garrison, George Pierce, Westward Extension. 

Green, John Richard, A Short History of the English People. 

Greene, Evarts Boutell, Provincial America. 

Halsey, Francis Whiting, (Editor), Great Epochs in American His- 
tory. ID vols. (These little volumes contain much useful 
original matter. Price for the set, $1.50.) 

Harding, Samuel Bannister, (Editor), Select Orations. 

Hart, Albert Bushnell, Flistory Told by Contemporaries. 4 vols. 
(This well-known compilation contains a vast amount of side- 
light matter.) 

Hitchcock, Ripley, Decisive Battles of American History. 

Howard, George Elliott, Preliminaries of the Revolution. 

Latan6, John H., America as a World Power. 

6^0 



APPENDIX C 621 

MacDonald, William, Jacksonian Democracy. 

McElroy, Robert McNutt, Kentucky in the Nation's History. 

McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham, The Confederation and the Con- 
stitution. 

McMaster, John Bach, A History of the People of the United States. 
8 vols. 

Ogg, Frederic Austin, The Opening of the Mississippi. 

Parkman, Francis, The Struggle for a Continent. The book re- 
ferred to under this title is an abridgment of Parkman's writ- 
ings edited by Pelham Edgar. 

Rhodes, James Ford, History of the United States. 7 vols. 

Robinson and Bbiard, Readings in Modern European History. 2 vols. 

(Edited by J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard.) 
Ropes, John Codman, Story of the Civil War. 3 vols. 

Smit^, Theodore Clarke, Parties and Slavery. 
Sparks, Edwin Erle, National Development. 

Thwaites, Reuben Gold, France in America. 
Turner, Frederick Jackson, Rise of the Nezv West. 
Tyler, Lyon Gardiner, England in America. 

Van Tyne, Claude Halstead, The American Revolution. 

Wilson, Woodrow, Division and Reunion. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



(.The page-numbers refer to the foot-notes as zoctl as to the main bods of the text) 



Abolition and Abolitionists, 340-34^, 383, 
3«4. 394 

Acadia, 48, 130, 137 

Adams, Abigail, 255 

Adams, John: 

joins the Patriots, 166 

in First Continental Congress, 172 

and the Declaration of Independence, 

179 
Vice President, 222, 232 
as President, 23S— 240 
candidate for re-election, 241 

Adams, John Quincy, 300, 3"-. 304. 306- 
309, 34^ 

Adanis, Samuel, 161, 167, 16S, i;-', 173, 
iSi, 218 

Addams, Jane, 569 

Aeroplanes, 575 

Agriculture: 

in Europe in fifteenth century, 5 

among llie Inuiaus, ly 

in England in sixteenth ctulury, 42 

111 Loiuiiies in 170U, loj 

at end of colonial period, 150 

condition of in 1600, 24D 

implements of, 5, 240, 358, 512 

value of products, 334, 514. 573 

compared witn manufacturing, 416, 51S 

during the Civil War, 470, 471 

its growth between i860 and 1880, 493 

patrons of husbandry, 490 

progress in between 1870 and 1890, 514 

Aguinaldo, 552 

Air brakes, 512 

/vix la Chapelle, treaty of, 130 

Alabama: 

discovered by De Soto, 28 
"made a Territory, 286 
admitted to the Union, 287 
withdraws from the Union, 424 
restored to the Union, 484 
" carpet bag " rule in, 499 

" Alabama Claims," 44S 

Alabama, the, 448 

Alamo, siege of, 346 

Alaska, 486, 542 

Albany, 54 

Albany Plan, the, 135 

Albemarle, 87 

Albuquerque, 367 

Alexander VI, Pope, 12 

Algonquins, 21 

Alien Act, 240 

Allen, Ethan, 176 

Altgeld, John P. 540 



Amendments to Constitution of the 
United States: 

first ten, 219 

Eleventh Amendment, 226 

Twelfth Amendmtnt, 241 

Thirteenth Amendment, 474, 479, 481 

Fourteenth Amendment, 482, 403, 4S4 

F'ifteenth Amendment, 487-488 

Sixteenth Amendment, 571 

Seventeenth Amendment, 571 
American Federation of Laboi , 520 
American Tobacco Company, 584 
Amberst, General, 13S 
Amidas, 39 

Amiens, peace of, 260 

Amnestry and Pardon, 478-479, 483, 488 
Anderson, Robert, 426 
Andre, Major, 193 
Andres, Sir Edmund, 76, 95 
Animals of North Amer.ca, 20, 30 
Annapolis (Maryland), iby, 213 
Anthony, Susan B., 570 
Antietam battle o£, 451 
Anti-federalists, 21S 
Anti-Rent Troubles, 339 
Appalachian Region, 16, 18 
Appomatox Court-House, 462 
Arbitration of labor troubles, 527 
Argall, Samuel, 48 
Arizona: 

a part of the Mexican cession, 355 

becomes a Territory, 307 

admitted to the Union, 582 
Arkansas: 

carved out of Louisiana Purchase, 261 

admitted to the Union, ^a 

withdraws from the Union. 433 

restored to the Union, 484 
Armada, Invincible, 38 
Army of the Potomac, 443 
Arnold Benedict, 176, 178, 193, 196 
Arthur, Chester A., 507, 508, 521 
Articles of Confederation, 201-203 
Assistance, Writs of, 161 
" Association," the, 173 
Assumption of debts, 228 
Atchison (Kansas), 395 
Atlanta, battle, 460 
Atlanta Coast Plain, 16, 18 
Automobiles, 575 
Avalon, 82 



Backwoods, life in, 148, 149, 291—293 
Bacon, Nathaniel, 81 
Bad Axe, battle, 361 



625 



626 



INDEX 



Baer, George F., 559 
Balance of Power, 299 
Balboa, 26 
Baltimore: 

founded, 119 

at end of colonial period, 153 

during the War of 1812, 272. 

and the western trade, 3^0 

and the Susquehanna trade, 3^8 

its growth, 417, 519 

during the Civil War, ^37 

labor riots in, 495 

great fire in, 567 
Baltimore, Lord (George Calvert). S-'-Sj 
Baltimore, Lord (Cecilius Calvert), 83, 

85, 86 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 3J9. 495 
Bancroft, George, 338 
Banks: 

First Bank of the United States, 229 

Second Bank of the United Stales, 
295. 3>8-3^o, 2,22 

State Banks, 322, 469 

National, 469, 5S5 
Baptists, no 
Barlow, 39 
Barnard, Henry, 516 
Barton, Clara, 568 
Bates, Edward, 430 
Baton Kouge, 447 
Battles, see under dificrent names. 
Bean, William, 146 
Beauregard, General, 431, 438, 44^ 
Beef Trust, 558 
Belknap, W. W., S"' 
Bell, Alexander G., 514 
Bell, John. 406 
Belmont, August, 539 
Bennett, James Gordon, 421 
Bennington, battle, 188 
Benton, Thomas H., 320 
Berkeley, lolia Lord, 95 
Berkeley, 'William, 80, 81 
Bessemer, Sir Henry, 512 
Betterment, social, 33S -340, 567-568 
Bible Commonwealth, 72 
Bienville, Celeron dc, 133 
Bill of Rights, 77 
Billion Dollar Congress, the, 533 
" Blackbeard," 89 
"Black Codes" the, 481 
Black Hawk, 361 
Black Hawk Purchase, 360 
Bladensburg, battle, 272 
Blaine, James G., 521. S22, 534 
Blair, Montgomery, 430 
Bland-Allison Silver Bill, 506 
Blockade, the, 439-440, 443, 472, 478 
Boardman, Mabel, 568 
Boards of Trade and Plantations, 114 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 260, 267, 272 
Bond Issues, 538-539 
Bonhomme Richard, the, 191 
Boone, Daniel, 144-145 
Boonesboro. 145 

Boone's Wilderness Road, 145, 2S1 
Pjooth, John Wilkes, 478 
Boston: 

founded, 64 
in 1700, 104 
at end of colonial period, 154 



Boston — Continued: 

during the Revolution, 166, 167, 168, 

^ 169, 171, 173-174. 178 

Its giowth, 243, 519 

great fire in, 495 
Boulder (Colorado), 412 
Bounties, 466 

Bouquet, General Henry, 142 
Bowie, James, 346 
Bowles, Samuel, 421 
Boxer Rebellion, 553 
Boy Scouts, 567 
Braddock, General, 136 
Braddock's Defeat, 136 
Bradford, William, 60 
Bragg, General Biaxton, 354, 447, 457, 

459 
Brandywine, battle, 187 
Brazil, 11, 14 
Breckinridge, John C, 406 
Breed's Hill, 174 
Brewster, William, 60 
Brock, (j'eneral, 270 
Brook l-"arni, 340 
Brooklyn, 185, 417, 518, 528 
Brooks, Preston, 397 
Brown, Gen. Jacob, 272 
Brown, John, 396, 405 
Brush, Charles F., 514 
Bryan, William J., 543^545. 555. 579. 

580, 586 
Bryant. William Cullcn, 338, 421 
Buccaneers, 37 
Buchanan, James, 397, 398, 399, 401, 

417, 426 
Buell, General, 446. 447 
Buena Vista, battle, 354 
Buffalo, the, 20 
Buffalo, 33J, 418, 519, 556 
Bull Run, jaltle, 438 
Bunker Hill, battle, 174 
Burgoyne, (General John, 187-189 
Burlington (Iowa), 360 
Burlingtou (N. J.), 96, 97 
Burnside, General, 451, 452 
Burr, Aaron, 238, 241, 264 
Butler, Senator, 397 
Byllynge, John, 96 



Cabinet meetings, 257 
Cabot, John, 12-14, 29 
Cable, transatlantic, 417 
Cabral. 1 1 

Calamities, great, 567 
Calhoun, John C. : 

advocates war with England, 269 

candidate for the Presidency, 304 

Vice President, 304 

and nullification, 312 

his career, 313 

on slavery, 376 

and the Compromise of 1850, 385 
California: 

coast skirted by Drake, 38 

the advance of Russia in, 301 

the aims of Polk in respect to, 351, 
352 

England's designs upon, 351 

conquest of, 354, 355 



INDEX 



627 



California — Continued : 

ceded to the United States, 355 

the missions, 363 

the discovery of gold in, 363 

travel to, 363-364 

rapid settlement of, 364 

admitted to the Union, 365, 385 

question of slavery in, 383, 385 

progressive measures in, 569, 570, 571, 

572, 573 
Calvert, Cecelius, 83, 85, 86 
Calvert, George, 82-83 
Calvert, Leonard, 83 
Camden, battle, 193 
Cameron, Simon, 430 
Campaign funds, 583-584 
Canada, 51, 125, 139, 170, 270, 384 
Canals, 328-330, 560-562 
Capital, location of, 228 
" Captains of Industry," 524, 558 
Carleton, General, 185, 187 
Carnegie, Andrew, 565, 568 
CaroHnas: 

French on the coast of, 30 

the settlement of the, 86—90 

in 1700, 104, 1 10, III 

extent of settlement in, in 1750, 121 

their attitude toward the French, 134 

see also North Carolina, South Caio- 
lina 
" Carpet baggers," 484, 499, 506 
Carteret, Sir George, 95 
Carteret, Philip, 95, 97 
Cartier, Jacques, 30 
Carver, John, 60 

Cass, Lewis, 381 ^' 

Catholics, 4, 32, 37. 38, 85, no, 126' 
Catt, Carrie Chapman, 570 
Caucus, Congressional, 2^1, 310 
Cavaliers, 80 
Censure, vote of, 320 
Centennial Exposition, 495 
Center of Population, 413 
Cerro Gordo, battle, 354 
Cervera, Admiral, 550 
Champlain, Samuel, 51-52 
Champoeg (Oregon), 362 
Chancellorsville, battle, 456 
Chapultepec, battle, 354 
Charity, 338, 340, 567 
Charles 1, 51, 64, 70, 73 
Charles II 70, 72, 74, 76, 80, 81, 83, 86, 

93 
Charleston (South Carolina), 87, 89, 104, 

130, 154, 169, 185, 192, 194, 243 
Chase, Salmon P., 397, 469 
Chase, Samuel, 172 
Chatham, Lord, 166 
Chattanooga, battle, 457-458 
Chautauqua Circles, 565 
Cherokees, 21, 145, 320 
Cherry Valley, 19s 
Chesapeake, the affair, 263 
Chester (Pa.), 99 
Cheyenne (Wyoming), 491 
Chicago: 

Fort Dearborn Massacre, 283 

McCormick's factory in, 359 

its growth, 417 

in war times, 471 

great fire in, 495 



Chicago — Continued: 

the metropolis of the West, 518 

the Haymarket affair, 528 

labor disturbances in, 540 

Columbian Exposition in, 540 
Chickamauga, battle, 457 
Chickasaws, 21, 320 
Child Labor, 335, 566 
Children's Bureau, 565 
Chillicothe (Ohio), 251 
China: 

search for route to, 12, 30, 35, 46, 53, 
127 

Boxer Rebellion in, 553 
Chinese, the, 51 1 
Chippewa Falls, 272 
Chisholm, case of, 226 
Choctaws, 21, 320 
Christiana, 92 
Cincinnati, 417, 519 
Cities: 

in Europe in fifteenth century, 2 

in the colonies in 1700, 104 

at end of colonial period, 154 

principal in 1800, 243 

in i860, 417-418 

growth in population of, 515-518, 523, 
572, 573 

reforms in government of, 571-573 
City Manager plan, 572 
Civil Rights Bill, 482 
Civil Service Commission, 509 
Civil Service Reform, 508, 509, 524-525 
Civil War: 

events leading to, 423-431 

preparation for, 431-433 

strength of the North and the South 
compared, 433-435 

the beginnings of, 437-438 

the blockade, 439-441 

organization and plan of campaign, 
441-444 

in the West (1862): Fort Donelson, 
Shiloh; opening of the Mississippi, 

444-447 
in the East (March, 1860-May 1863): 
the Monitor and the Merrimac: 
naval warfare; the Peninsular Cam- 
paign; Manassas; Antietam; Freder- 
icksburg, 447-452 
results of the fighting in 1862, 452-453 
in 1863: Chancellorsville; Gettysburg; 

Vicksburg; Chattanooga, 456-458 
results of the fighting in 1863, 459 
the close of the struggle: Atlanta; 
Savannah; the campaign against Lee; 
Appomatox, 459-462 
keeping the ranks filled, 465-467 
meeting the expenses of, 467-469 
politics during, 473-474 
Claiborne, William, 84, 86 
Claiborne, William, governor of Louisi- 
ana, 285 
Clans, 21 

Clarendon, Ear] of, 86 
Clark, Champ, 586 
Clark, George Rogers, 195 
Clark, William, 289 
Clay, Henry: 

advocates war with England, 269 
his American System, 303 



628 



INDEX 



Clay, Henry — Continued : 

candidate for the Presidency, 304, 319, 
347. 381 

Secretary of State, 306 

character, 316 

and the tariff of 1833, 316 

and the Compromise of 1850, 385-307 
Clayton- Bulwer Treaty, 364, 561 
Clermont, the, 284 
Cleveland, Grovcr, 5J1, s-'j, 5J4-5J7, 

537-547. 55- 
Cleveland, J51, 330, 519 
Climate of North Anieiica, 17-18 
Clinton I)e Witt, 328 
Clinton, George, 232 
Clinton, Sir Henry, 192 
Clipper Ships, 415 
Coal Strike, 559 
Cohens iw. Virginia, 296 
Cold Harbor, battle, 461 
Collective Bargaining, 559 
Colleges and Universities, 4. 157, 244, 
337-338, 420, 515 516, 564 
See also Education 
Colombia, 562 
Colonies: 

attempts of France to plant, 30-31, 48 

first efforts of England to plant, 39—41 

England's reason for planting, 42-43 

business features of, 45, 59, 61, 65, 
81, 91 

government of, 45-47, 50, 61, 71, 83, 
85, 87, 94, 96,111-113, 159 

English and French contrasted, 52-53, 
131 

Dutch, 53-55, 91-94 

Swedish, 92-93 

in 1700, 102, 114 

grovk'th of between 1700 and 1750, 115- 
124 

life in at end of Colonial period, 156- 
158 

their quarrel with tiie mother country, 
159-170 

revolt of the, 171 — 181 

independence of secured, 183-198 

see also names of the several colonies 
Colorado: 

carved (in part) out of Louisiana 
Purchase, 261 

its early settlement, 411 

made a Territory, 412 

admitted to the Union, 492 

progressive measures in, 570, 571 
Columbian Exposition, 540 
Columbus, Christopher, 9-11 
Columbus, Diego, 25 
Columbus (Ohio), 326 
Commerce: 

in Europe in fifteenth century, 5 

blocked by the Turks, 9 

effect of the discovery of America 
upon, 14 

England's efforts to increase, 41 

effect of the Navigation Laws upon, 81 

in the colonies in 1700, 108-109 

at end of colonial peiiod, 152-153 

regulation of, 203, 217 

under the Confederation, 205 

extent of in 1800, 248 

depredations upon, 236, 262—264 



Commerce — Continued : 

struggle for commercial freedom, 262- 
274 

legal meaning of the word, 296 

movements of inland, 333-334, 414 

foreign, 248, 334, 415, 471, 493, 514, 
573 

effect of trunk lines upon, 414 

regulation of interstate, 296, 526-527 

^ 578, 583 

during the Civil War, 470-473 

progress in, between 1870 and 1890, 
514 

progress in, between 1900 and 1912, 
573 

the ■' open door policy," 553 
Commission System of Municipal Govern- 
ment, 572 
Committees of Correspondence, 168, 172 
" Common Sense," Paine's, i8o 
Compass, the, 7 
Conii)roniise, Crittenden. 427 
Compromise of 1850, 383-387 
Compromises of the Constitution, 215 
Comstock mine, 412 
Concessions and Agreement, 96 
Concord, battle, 173 
Confederate States of America, 424 
Confederation, Articles of, 201-202 
Congresses: 

Albany, 135 

Stamj) Act, 163 

First Continental, 172-173 

Second Continental, 176-178, 179, 191 
201, 220 

of the Confederation, 201-203, 208 

under the Constitution, 214-216 
Conkling, Roscoe, 508 
Connecticut: 

settlement of, 70—72 

and its charter, 76, 78 

population of, in 1700, 104 

Its constitution, iii, 199 

during the Revolution, 171 

opposed to War of 1812, 270 

and Pel sonal Liberty laws, 393 
Conscription, 465—466 
Conservation policy, 579 
Constantinople, 8 
Constitution, the, 271 
Constitutions, 112, 199 
Constitution, First Written, 71 
Constitution of the United States: 

its formation, 213—217 

its ratification, 217-220 

Amendments, 219, 226, 241, 474, 479, 

. 48^, 484, 487, 571 

Us interpretation, 230-231, 296, 314 
Continental Congress (First), 172-175 
Continental Congress (Second), 176-178, 

179, 191, 201, 220 
Convention of 1787, 213-217 
Cooper, Fenimore, 338 
Cooper, Peter, 329, 502 
"Copperheads," 473 
Cordillera, 17, 18 
Corinth (Miss.), 445-446 
Corn, 19, 573 
Cornstalk, Chief, 144 
Cornwallis, General, 186, 193, 196 
Coronado, 28 



INDEX 



629 



Corporations, 526, 536, 557, 577, 580, 584, 
587 

Correspondence Committees of, 168, 172 

Correspondence Schools, 565 

Cortez, 28 

Corydon (Indiana), 283 

Cotton, 288, 331-332, 334, 440, 471, 472, 
573 

County government, 113, 573 

County-township system, 94 

Cowpens, battle, 195 

Coxey's Army, 539 

Crawford, William H., 304 

Credit Mobilier, 501 

Creeks, 21, 273, 320 

Crittendon Compromise, 427 

Crockett, David, 346 

Cromwell, Oliver, J3, 80 

Crown Point, 176 

Crusades, 5 

Cuba, 10, 26, 139, 355, 391, 547-552 

Cumberland dap, 133, 144, 281 

Cumberland (Md.), 283 

Currency, see Money and Monetary Mat- 
ters 

Curriculum of Colleges, 4, 516 

Curtis, George William, 340, 502 

Custer, General George, 492 

Customs duties, see Tariff 



Dakota Territory, 411, 493 

see North Dakota, South Dakota 
Dale, Sir Thomas, 48 
Dallas, 532 
Dalton (Georgia), 460 
Dana, Charles A., 340 
Dare, Virginia, 40 
Davenport, John, 72 
Davenport (Iowa), 360 
Davis, Jefferson, 354, 425, 431, 455, 462, 

473 
Dawes Bill, 532 
Dayton (Ohio), 251, 567, 572 
Deane, Silas, 172 
Dearborn, Henry, 257 
Dearborn, Fort, 283 

Debs, Eugene V., 540, 563, 579, 580, 587 
Debt, national, 177, 204, 227-229, 322, 

468, 469, 496 
Declaration of Independence, 179— 181 
Deerfield (Mass.), 130 
De Kalb, General, 193 
Delaiware, Lord, 47 
Delaware: 

the Swedes in, 92 

acquired by Penn, 99 

has its own legislature, loi 

in the Revolution, 181 

first ta ratify the Constitution, 219 

remains in the Union, 433 
Dermarcation, line of, 12 
Democracy, 293 

Democratic Party, 242, 265, 295, 319, 324, 
32s, 347, 381-383, 388, 394, 397-399- 
406-407, 474, 487, 490, 502, 507, 521, 
530, 537, 543-545, 555, 563, 579. 
586-587 
Democratic-Republican Party, 230-232, 237 
Denver. 412, 492 



Departments, executive, of national gov- 
ernment, 224—226 
Deposits, removal of, 319 
Deseret, the proposed State of, 366 
Des Moines, 360, 572 
De Soto, Hernando, 28 
Detroit, 142, 195, 330, 41S, 519 
Dewey, Admiral George, 549-550 
Dias Bartholomeu, 9 
Dickinson, John, 166, 172 
Dingley Tariff, 546-547 
Dinwiddle, Governor, 134 
Direct Nominations, 571 
District of Columbia, 383, 385 
Donelson, Fort, 443, 444 
Dongan, Governor, 12a 
Dorr's Rebellion, 339 
Douglas, Stephen A., 389-391, 393, 397, 

401, 402-405, 40G, 407, 4^3, 430 
Dover (New Hampshire), 67, 129 
Drake, Sir Francis, 33, 37—39, 40 
Draft, the, 465 
Dred Scott Decision, 399—401 
Drumniond, William, 87 
Dubuque, 360 

Duke of York, see James II 
Duluth, 492 
Dunmore's War, 144 
Duquesne, Fort, 134, 138 
Dutch, the; 

plant the colony of New Netherlands, 

. S3 

in Connecticut, 70 

in the Carolinas, 88 

in New Netherlands, 91 

and the Swedes, 92 

end of their rule in New Netherlands, 
93-94 

see also Holland 
Dutch West India Company, 54 



Early, Jubal, 461 

East India (Company, 43, 168 

Eaton, Theophilus, 72 

Edict of Nantes, 89 

Edison, Thomas A., 512, 514 

Education : 

in Europe in the fifteenth century, 4 

in the colonies in 1700, no— iii 

at end of colonial period, 157 

Colleges and Universities, 4, 157, 244, 
337-338, 420, 515-516, 564 

and the Ordinance of 1787, 209 

in 1800, 243 

public schools, in, 157, 243, 336-338, 
419, 515-516, 564-565 

of slaves, 375 

high schools, 420, 515, 564 

progress in, 515-516, 564-565 

the Land Grant Act, 515 

Bureau of Education, 516 

improvement in methods of, 516 
El Caney, battle, 550 
Elections, Presidential: 

Washington (1788), 222 

^ , " (1792), 232 

John Adams (1796), 238 

Jefferson (1800), 241 
(1804). 262 



630 



INDEX 



Elections — Contiii ucd : 

Madison (1808), 265 
(1812), 269 

Monroe (1816), 294 
(1820), 300 

J. Q. Adams (.1824), 304 

Jackson (1828), 309 
(1832), 319 

Van Buren (1830), 321 

Wm. II. Harrison (1840), 324 

Polk (.1844), 347 

Taylor (1848), 3S1-3SJ 

Pierce (1852), 388 

Buchanan (1856), 397-399 

Lincoln (i860), 405-400 
(1864), 474 

Grant (.1868), 487 
(,1872), 490 

Hayes (1876), So- 

Gartield (,1880), 507 

Cleveland (.1884), 521 

Benj. Harrison (1888), 530 

Cleveland (1892), 537 

McKinley (1896), 542-545 
(1900), 555-556 

Roosevelt (1904), 562-563 

Taft (1908), 579 

Wilson C1912). 5S5-S87 
Electoral Commission, 503 
Electoral Count Act, 525 
Electors, presidential, 216, 220, 241, 310 
Electricity, 512, 514, 574-575 
Eliot, Charles W., 516 
Elizabeth, Queen, 37-39 
Elizabeth (N. J.), 95 
Elkins Law, 578 
Emanciiiation, 453^45^. 47^, 479 
Embargo Act, 263— 2O4 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 338, 421 
Employers' Liability Laws, 566 
Endicott, John, 63 
England : 

in fifteenth century, 1, 3 

her claims to America, 12—14 

extends her power upon the seas, 34—36 

her clash with Spain, 36-39 

her tiist efforts at colonization, 39—41 

conditions in, 1600, 42—43 

plants the Virginia colony, 43—51 

takes possession of New York, 93—94 

her repressive colonial policy, 107, 151 

hei alliance with the Iroquois, 128 

border warfare between English and 
French, 129—131 

her struggle with France for the conti- 
nent of America, 132-139 

overthrows French power in America, 

"39 . , . 

the first of commercial nations, 140 
asserts her authority over the colonies, 

159 
taxes her colonies, 160-165 
her action during the Revolution, 166 

191, 197 
unfriendly conduct of, 203, 236, 262- 

264 
strained relations with, 267-269 
and the Oregon country, 350 
designs of upon California, 351 
during the Civil War, 440-441 
lakes a part in Mexican affairs, 486 



England — Continued : 

and the Venezuelan boundary, 541 -541 
Episcopal Church, 57, 58, no 
Era of Good Feeling, 294—303 
Erdman Act, 527 
Ericson, Leif, 13 
Erie Canal, 326—328, 330 
Erskine, British Ministei, 267 
Established Cluircii, see Episcopal Church 
Europe in the fifteenth century, 1-7 
Expansion, Territorial, 356 



I'aclory system, 247, 334-335 
Fair Oaks, battle, 449 
Fallen Timbers, battle, 251 
Farming, sec Agriculture 
Farragut, Admiral, 447 

Federal Government, the, 213, 214—217, 
294-297 

sec also Government 
Federalist Party, 231, 237, 240-^42, 265, 

276 
Federalist, the, 218 
Federation of Labor, 520 
Fenwick, John, 96 
Ferdinand of Spain, 3 
Field, Cyrus W., 417 
Fifteenth Amendment, 487—488 
Fillmore, Millard, 381, 387, 398, 399 
Finance, see Money and Monetary Mat- 
ters, also Banks 
Fires, great, 495, 567 
Fish and Fisheries, 20, 29, 34, 57, 106, 

151. .197, 542 
Five Nations, 22 
Florida: 

discovered by Ponce, 27 

invaded by Ogelthorpe, 123 

ceded to the English, 139 

given back to Spain, 197 

acquired from Spain, 288 

made a Territory, 288 

admitted to the Union, 362 

withdraws from the Union, 424 

restored to the Union, 484 
Flying-Machines, 575 
Foote, Commodore, 444, 447 
Force bill, 316 
Force laws, 500 
Forests, 18 

Forts, see under different names 
Fort Worth, 532 

Fourteenth Amendment, 482, 483, 484 
France: 

in the fifteenth century, i, 3 

the fishermen of, 29 

challenges the claims of Spain, 30 

sends Cartier to America, 30 

her clash with Spain, 31 

British blow at French colonization, 48 

her power in Canada, 51-53 

her method of colonization, 52 

expansion of her power, 125-128 

border warfare between French and 
English, 128-131 

power of, in the Mississippi Valley, 

'3'-'3S . , . 

struggle for the control of America, 

135-139 



INDEX 



631 



France — Continued : 

loses American possessions, 139 

enters into an alliance with the United 
States, 189— igi 

Revolution in, 234 

appeals to United States for aid, 235 

unfriendly conduct of, 239, 262—264 

sells Louisiana to the United States, 
260-262 

her decrees against our commerce, 267 

during the Civil War, 440 

takes a part in Mexican affairs, 486 
Francis I, 30 
Franklin, Benjamin: 

his career, 135 

his plan of union, 135 

and the Treaty of Paris, 139 

at head of postal system, 154 

joins the Patriots, 166 

his services in France, 189—191 

peace commissioner, 197 

a member of Convention of 1787, 213 
Franklin, State of, 250 
Fredericksburg, battle, 452 
Freedman's Bureau, 481—482, 485 
Freeport Speech, 404 
Free Silver, 230, 498, 506, 543-545. 555. 

563 
Free Soil Party, 382, 389, 394 
Fremont, John C, 354, 397, 399 
French and Indian War, 135—140 
French Revolution, 234 
Frobisher, Martin, 35 
frontier Line: 

in 1700, 102—104 

in 1750, 115-121 

in 1800, 252 

in 1820, 291 
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, 384, 385, 

387-388, 393-394 
"Fundamental Orders," 71 
Fur trade, 52, 53, 61, 106, 289 



G 



Gadsden Purchase, 367 

Gage, General, 173 

Gallatin, Albert, 257 

Galloway, Joseph, 172 

Galveston, 567, 572 

Gama, Vasco da, 1 1 

Garfield, James A., 507, 508 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 341-342, 394 

Gaspee, the, 167 

Gates, General Horatio, 188, 193 

General Court, 62, 65 

Genet, Edmond, 235 

"Geneva Award," 448 

George III, 142, 166, 197 

George, Henry, 529 

Georgia: 

settlement of, 121—123 
becomes a royal colony, 124 
during the Revolution, 172, 192 
withdraws from the Union, 424 
during the Civil War, 459-460 
restored to the Union, 484 

Germans, 117, 123, 359, 413, 432, 470 

Germantown, 117, 187 



Germany, 3, 359 

(ierry, Elbridge, 238 

( iettysburg, battle, 456 

Ghent, treaty of, 274 

Gibbons vs. Ogden, 296 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 39 

Gilman, Daniel Coit, 51b 

Gist, Christopher, 133 

Gold, 26, 230, 363, 367, 412, 538, 554 

Gold Standard Act, 554 

Gompers, Samuel, 520 

Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 67 

Gorton, Samuel, 70 

Government: 

in Europe in the fifteenth century, 4 
in the Virginia colony, 45-47, 50, 112 
in colonial New England, 61, 71, 112 
suffrage, 65, 113, 199, 244, 293, 483, 

5'9, 5^1, 570, 571 
in colonial Maryland, 83, 85, i i r 
in the Carolinas, 87 
in colonial New York, 94 
in colonial New Jersey, 96, 97 
in colonial Pennsylvania, 99 
three types of, in the colonies, in— 113 
the three departments of, 112, 200 
in colonial Georgia, 122—123 
of a State, 199-201 
under the Confederation, 201—203 
centrifugal and centripetal forces in, 

21 1—213 
as established by the Constitution, 213— 

220 
by parties, 2^2 
territorial, 250 
effect of frontier life, 293 
reconstruction plan of, 482—484 
of the insular possessions, 552 
the rule of the people, 569—573 

Governor, the colonial, 113 

Grady, Henry W., gio 

Grand Model, the, 87 

Granger cases, 496 

Grant, Ulysses S. : 

in the Mexican War, 354 

captures Fort Donelson, 444 

his career and character, 444—445 

at Shiloh, 445 

at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, 457—458 

in command of all the armies, 458 

against Lee in Virginia, 461 

elected President, 487 

conciliatory policy of, 488 

re-elected President, 490 

corruption in his Cabinet, 501 

effort to nominate for third term, 507 

Grasse, Count de, 196 

Gray, Robert, 289 

Great Britain, see England 

Great Lakes, 17, 330 

Great Law, the, 99 

Greeley, Horace, 394, 421, 490 

Greenback Party, 502, 507 

Greenbacks, 467, 468, 496—498, 538 

Greene, Natlianael, 194-196 

Greenville, Treaty of, 251 

Grenville (Prime Minister), 162 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, treaty, 35s 

Guam, 551 

Guerriere, the, 271 



Il 



632 



INDEX 



Habeas Corjuts, 474 

Haiti, 10, J5 

Ualf-Mouii, the, 53 

Ilalleck, Gen. li. VV., 354. 446, 450 

Hamilton, Alexander, 166, 213, 2-'5, 

231. -i7< 264 
Hancock, John, 173 
Hanna, Marcus A., 544, 555 
Harmon, Judson, 586 
Harpers Ferry, 405 
Harris, William Torrey, 516 
Harrisburg 'Pa.), 118, 45O 
Harrison, Ht^njamin, 530, 533, 537 
Harrison, William Henry, 268, 283, 
llarrod, James, 145 
Harrodsburg, 145 
Hartford, 70, 275 
Hartford Convention, 275—276 
Harvard College, 1 1 1 
Harvester Trust, 584 
Havana, 26, 32 
Hawaii, 552-553 
Hawkins, John, 36, 38 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 338, 421 
Hay, Jolm, 553 
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 561 
Hayes, Rutherford B., 502, 503, S^S 

532, 561 
Haymarket Affair, 52S 
Hayne, Senator, 313 
Heath, Sir Robert, 86 
Henderson, Richard, 145 
Henry VII, 3, 12 
Henry \'11I, 35 
Henry, Fort, 443. 444 
Henry, the Navigator, 9 
Henry, Patrick, 162, 172, 218 
Hepburn Act, 578 
Herald, the New York, 421 
Herkimer, General, 188 
Hessians, the, 183 
Hewitt, A. S., 529 
High Schools, 420, 515, 564 
Hoboken, 95 

Ilobson, Richard P., 550 
Hoe printing press, 421 
Holland, 53, 59, 81. 93 

see also Dutch, the 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 338, 421 
Holy Alliance, 301-302 
"Holy Experiment," the, 98-101 
Homestead Act, 470 
Homestead, riots in, 537 
Hood, General J. B., 460 
Hooker, General, 452, 456 
Hooker, Thomas, 70 
Hopkins, Stephen, 172 
Hospitals, 567 

House of Representatives, 135, 215 
Houston, Sam., 346 
Howard, Lord Charles, 38 
Howe, Elias, 416 
Howe, General, 178, 185-187, 192 
Hudson, Henry, ,s3 
Huguenots, 32, 88 
Hull, William, 270 
Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 70 



Iberville, 131 
Idaho: 

a ijart of the Oregon country, 355 
made a Territory, 493 
:28- admitted to the Union, 531 

Illinois: 

a part of the Northwest Territory, 170 
made a Territory, 283 
admitted to the Union, 283 
growth of, 285, 331, 413 
in war times, 471 
progressive legislation in, 566 
equal suffrage in, 571 
524 Illiteracy, 515, 565 

Immigration, 25, 117-121, 359-360, 413, 

470, 490, 5:1, 573 
Impeachment of Johnson, 484-486 
Imperialism, 555 
Impressment, 235, 263, 274 
Income Tax, 468, 498, 537. 54«. S7i. 589 
"Indented" servants, 49 
Independence, Declaration of, 1 79-181 
Independents, 58, 74 
Independent Treasury, 323-324 
Indiana: 

a part of the Northwest Territory, 170 
506, made a Territory, 252 

admitted to the Union, 282 
growth of, 285, 331 
its public school system, 337 
Indianapolis, 283, 326 
Indians: 

origin of the name, 20 
physical characteristics, 21 
numbers and principal tribes, 21 
government and civilization, 22—24 
in colonial Virginia, 50, 80 
in colonial New York, 52, 53, 116 
in colonial New England, 61, 71, 75 
in colonial Pennsylvania, loo 
alliance with the Five Nations, 128 
and the Ordinance of 1787, 209 
in the French and Indian War, 135 
their position after 1763, 141 
imder Pontiac, 142—143 
and the treaty of Fort Stanwix, 143 
during the Revolution, 195 
and the Treaty of Greenville, 251 
in the Northwest, 268, 282 
in the Southwest, 273 
removal of 320—321 
in Iowa and Wisconsin, 360-361 
in Florida, 288, 362 
in Nebraska and Montana, 491, 492 
the Custer Massacre, 492 
the Dawes Bill, 532 
Indian Territory, 321, 532, 582 
Industry: 
, 480 in Europe in the fifteenth century, 5 

in England in seventeeth century, 42 
in colonial Virginia, 45 
in the colonies in 1700, 105—108 
at end of colonial period, 150—152 
the industrial revolution, 247 
effect of War of 1812 upon, 274-275 
between 1830 and 1840, 334—336 
panics, 323, 414, 494. 539-54' 
industrial independence, 336 
and slavery, 377-37^ 



INDEX 



(^33 



In liistiy — Continued ■ 
in the fifties, 415—417 
during tlie Civil War, 470-472 
condition alter the War, 493, 496 
labor organizations 339, 495, 519—520, 

558-560 
strikes and lockouts, 495 
progress in (1877-1885), 509-515 
industrial unrest, 527—529 
the decline of competition, 534-536 
the Trusts, 536-537. 557-558, 580, 584 
concentration in, 534-536, 557-558, 577 
reforms in industrial conditions, 566 
women in, 568 

concentration of capital in, 577 
twentieth century progress in, 573-577 

Initiative and Referendum, 569-570 

Insurgents, 582 

Internal Improvements, 308 

Internal Revenue, 468, 498 

'"Interposition," 312, 315 

Interstate Commerce Commission, 526— 
5-'7, 578, S83 

"Intolerable Acts," the, 169 

Inventions, 358, 416—417, 470, 512-514, 
574-576 

Invincible Armada, 38 

Iowa: 
carved out of Louisiana Purchase, 261 
early settlement of, 360 
admitted to the Union, 360 
growth of, 361, 413 

Irish, 3S9, 470 

Iron, 151, 335-336, 471, 512. 573 

Iroquois Indians, 21, 52, 53, 116, 128, 132, 

135 
Irrigation, 365, 492, 579 
Irving, Washington, 338 
Isabella of Spain, 3 
Island Number 10, 447 
Italy, 3 



Jackson, Andrew: 

breaks the power of the Indians, 273 

wins the battle of New Orleans, 273 

crushes the Seminoles, 288 

governor of Florida, 288 

candidate for presidency, 304 

his campaign against Adams, 306—309 

his character, 307 

Jacksonian Democracy, 309—310 

and the offices, 310—311 

and nullification, 312—317 

and the Second Bank of the United 
States, 318—320 

and the Indians, 320—321 

and the annexation of Texas, 346 
Jackson, Fort, 447 
Jackson, T. J. ("Stonewall"), 354, 450, 

456 
Jackson (Michigan), 394 
Jamaica, 26 

James I, 43, 45, 50, 58 
James II, 77, 93, 94, 95, 129 
Jamestown, 44-47, 81 
Japan, 368 

Jay Cooke & Co., 494 
Jay, John, 172, 197, 218, 226, 236 



Jay's Treaty, 236 

Jeiferson, Thomas: 

joins the Patriots, 166, 168 

writes tlie Declaration of Independence, 

181 
simplifies monetary system, 207 
attitude toward government, ji2 
as Secretary of State, 225 
leader of Democratic Party, 230—231 
Vice President, 238 
elected President, 241 
opposed to slavery, 245 
improves construction of plows, 246 
his principles and measures, 255-258 
puts down the pirates, 258-259 
purchases Louisiana, 259-261 
his dealings with France and England, 

262-264 
his retirement, 265 

plans for exploration of Louisiana, 289 
and the Missouri Compromise, 300 
and the Monroe Doctrine, 303 
founds the University of Virginia, 338 

Jeffersonian principles, 256—258 

"Jefferson Territory," 412 

Jersey City (New Jersey), 95, 418 

Jesuits, 126, 363 

Johnson, Andrew, 474, 478, 479, 481, 
482, 484, 485-486 

Johnson, Sir William, 138 

Johnson, William, 213 

Johnston, Albert Sidney, 445 

Johnston, Joseph E., 354, 438, 447, 449, 
459, 460, 462 

Joliet, Louis, 126 

iones, John Paul, 191 
udiciary, federal, 216, 226, 258, 295 



Kansas: 

discovered by Coronado, 28 

carved out of Louisiana Purchase, 261 

organized as a Territory, 390 

pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in, 
395-396 

the Lecompton Constitution, 401—402 

admitted to the Union, 411 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 389—391, 394 
Kaskaskia (111.), 195, 283 
Kearney, Dennis, 511 
Kearney, Stephen, 354 
Kenesaw Mountain, battle, 460 
Kent Island, 84 
Kentucky: 

first house erected in, 133 

early settlement of, 144—145 

admitted to the Union, 250 

remains in the Union, 433 

during the Civil War, 446 
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, 240, 

275 
Keokuk Dam, 574 
King George's War, 130 
King Philip's War, 75 
King, Rufus, 213 
King William's War, 129 
King's Mountain, battle, 195 
Klondike, 554 
Knights of Labor, 519, 520, 528 



634 



INDEX 



Know-Nothing Party, 398 
Knox, Henry, 226 
Ku-Klux-Klan, 499—500 



Labor Organizations, 339. 495- 519-520, 

558-560 
Laconia, 67 

Lafayette, General, 196 
La Follette, Robert, 585, 586 
Lancaster (Pa.), 117 
Land Grant Act, 515 
Lands, public, 278-^79, 322, 3i7, 357. 47°. 

491, 492 
Lane, Ralph, 40 
J^ngley, Professor, S7S 
La Salle, Robert, 127 
l^tin Grammar School of Boston, iii 
Laudonniere,^ 31 
Lawrence (Kansas), 396 
Leavenworth, Fort, 354. 395 
Leboeuf, 134 

Lecompton Constitution, 401—402 
Lee, General Charles, 192 
Lee, Richard Henry, 180, 218 
Lee, Robert E. : 

in the Mexican War, 354 

captures John Brown, 405 

offered the command of the Union 
forces, 449 

his character as a general, 450 

at Manassas, Antietam and Fredericks- 
burg, 451-452 

at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 456- 

457 

his final struggle with Grant, 461-462 
Legal Tender Act, 469 
Leisler, Jacob, 95 
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 561 
Lewes (Delaware), 54 
Lewis, Andrew, 144 
Lewis and Clark Expedition, 289 
Lewis Meriwether, 289 
Lexington (Kentucky), 145 
Lexington (Massachusetts), battle, 173 
Liberator, the, 341 
Liberty Party, 342, 382 
Libraries, 158, 565 
Library of Congress, 258 
Life: 

among the Indians, 21-23 

in the Old Dominion, 82 

in the colonies in 1700, 105—113 

in the backwoods, 148—149 

in the colonies at end of colonial period, 
150-158 

everyday, in about 1800, J43-249 

on the frontier, 292, 293 
Lincoln, Abraham: 

a Republican leader, 397 

debates with Douglas, 402-405 

his career up to 1858, 403 

elected President, 406 

effect of election of upon the South, 
423-424 

opposes the Crittenden Compromise, 427 

his first inaugural, 428 

and the forts, 427-431 

prepares for war, 431-433 

declares a blockade, 439 



Lincoln, Abraham — Continued : 
reorganizes the army, 441—442 
orders a general movement of troops, 

443 
urges McClellan to action, 447 
issues emancipation proclamation, 453— 

455 
makes Grant Commander-in-Chief, 458 
opposition to, 473 
re-elected President, 474 
states the conditions of peace, 476 
his plan of reconstruction, 476-477 
the assassination of, 477—478 

Lincoln, Levi, 257 

Literature, 157, 338, 420-421, 516-517 

Little Belt, the, 269 

Livingston, Philip, 172 

Livingston, Robert, 260 

Locke, John, 87 

Lockwood, Belva A., 521 

London, 2 

London Company, 43, 44, 50, 51, 59 

Longfellow, II. VV'., 338, 421 

Long Island, battle, 185 

Lookout Mountain, battle, 458 

Lords of trade, 114 

Los Angeles, 363, 510 

Lost Mountain, battle, 460 

Louis XIV', 125, 127, 129 

Louis XVI, 234 

Louisburg, 130, 131, 138 

Louisiana: 

possession of by France, 127 
character of French settlement in, 131— 

132 
ceded to Spain, 139 
ceded back to France, 260 
purchased by the United States, 260- 

262 
during the War of 181 2, 273 
territory of Orleans, 285 
admitted to the Union, 286 
District of, 286, 291 
boundary of, 288 
withdrav^'s from the Union, 424 
" black codes " in, 481 
restored to the Union, 484 

Louisville, 145, 418 

Lovejoy, Elijah, 341 

Lowell, James Russell, 389, 421 

Lowell (Mass.), 335, 418 

Loyalists, 165, 175-176, 197, 203 

Lundy, Benjamin, 341 

Lundy's Lane, 272 

Luther, Martin, 32 

Lutherans, 110 

Lynn (Mass.), 107 

Lyon, (General, 438 

M 

McOellan, George B., 437, 441, 447—448, 

449. 450, 4=;i. 474 
McCormick, Cyrus, 358 
McCulloch vs. Maryland, 296 
McDonough, Captain, 272 
McDowell, General, 438, 450 
McHenry, Fort, 272 
McKay Sewing Machine, 471 
McKinley, William, 534, 543, 545, 546, 

548, 549. 55 >. 555. 556, 557 



INDEX 



f>35 



McKmley Bill, 534 

Madison, James, 213, 218, 227, 241, 257, 
265, 267, 269, 287 

Madison (Wisconsin), 361 

Magellon, 26 

Maine: 

French colonies on coast of, 48 
English colony on coast of, 56 
its fisheries, 57 

made a part of Massachusetts, 68 
admitted to he Union, 298 
settlement of boundary, 345 

" Maine," the, 548—549 

Manassas, battles: 
first, 438 
second, 451 

Manhattan Island, 53-55, 328 

Manila, battle, 549-551 . 

Manitou, the, 22 

Mann, Horace, 336, 390 

Mann-Elkins Act, 583 

Manufactures: 

in Europe in the fifteenth century, 5 

in England in seventeenth century, 43 

in the colonies in 1700, 107 

at end of colonial period, 151 — 152 

household stage of, 5, 247, 334 

the factory system, 248, 334 

effects of War of 1812 upon, 274—275 

cotton and woolen goods, 335 

iron manufactures, 151, 335, 471 

compared with agriculture, 416, 518 

center of, 416 

during the Civil War, 470—472 

growth after the War, 493—494 

in the South, 510 

progress in between 1870 and 1890, 514 

progress in between 1900 and 1912, 573 

and the use of electricity, 574—576 

Marbery vs. Madison, 296 

Marconi, William, 576 

Marco Polo, 7 

Marietta (Ohio), 250 

Marion, Francis, 193 

Markham, William, 98 

Marquette, Father James, 126 

Marshall, John, 238, 295—297 

Maryland: 

its settlement, 82—86 
in 1700, 104, 1 10 

education in, in colonial times, iii 
Germans and Scotch-Irish in, 119 
its attitude toward the French, 134 
during the Revolution, 171, 193 
and western lands, 201 
remains in the Union, 433 

Mason, James, 440 

Mason, John, 67 

Mason and Dixon's Line, 83, 298 

Massachusetts: 

settlement of, 62—66 

expansion of, 67-72 

its independent spirit, 74 

a Puritan theocracy, 74 

becomes a royal province, 77 

in 1700, 102, 104, 106, 109, no 

during the Revolution, 162, :68, 169, 

171, 173-174. 177 
cedes claims to western lands, 201 
Shays's rebellion in, 208 
opposed to War of 1812, 270 



Massachusetts — Continued . 

permits Maine to become a Slate, 298 

in the Civil War, 432 

progressive legislation in, 566 
Maximilian, 486 
Mayflower, the, 59 
Mayflower Compact, 60 
Meade, General, 457 
Mechanicsville, battle, 450 
Memphis, 418, 447 
Menendez, Pedro, 31 
Mercantile theory, the, 107 
Merchant Marine, 415, 448 
Merritt, General, 550 
Methodist Church, 381 
Mexican War, the, 352-354 
Mexico, 28, 352-355, 486 
Michigan : 

explored by the French. 52 

a part of the Northwest Territory, 170 

during the War of 1812, 271, 272 

made a Territory, 330 

admitted to the Union, 331 

and Personal Liberty laws, 30^ 

beginning of Republican Partv in, 394 

growth of, 330, 413 

progressive legislation in, 566, 572 
Miles, General, 551 
Milwaukee, 361, 418, 519 
Mine Workers, 559, 560 
Minimum Wage, 566 
Minneapolis, 519 
Minnesota: 

carved (in part) out of Louisiana Pur- 
chase, 261 

rapid settlement of, 410 

admitted to the Union, 411 
Minuits, Peter, 54 
Miquelon, 139 
Mississippi: 

made a Territory, 250 

admitted to the Union, 286 

withdraws from the Union, 424 

" black codes " in, 481 

restored to the Union, 488 
Mississippi River, 28, 126, 260, 443, 447 
Mississippi Valley, 16, 18, 117, 126, 131— 

„ - '^3 
Missouri: 

carved out of Louisiana Purchase, 261 

settlement of, 290 

made a Territory, 291 

admitted to the Union, 291 

debate on the admission of, 297-298 

remains in the Union, 433 

in the Civil War, 4^8 
Missouri Compromise, 297—300, 389-391, 

400 
Mitchell, John, 559 
Mobile, 287 

Molino del Rey, battle, 354 
Money and Monetary Matters: 

in colonial times, 109 

monetary system under the Confedera- 
tion, 206—207 

paper money, 177, 207, 468-469 

free silver, 230, 498, 506, 542, 545, 555, 
.563 

wild cat currency, 322 

financial operations during the Civil 
War, 468-469 



636 



INDEX 



Jloney and Monetary Matters — Contin- 
ued : 

the cost of the War, 467 468 

Clreenbacks, 469, 496-498, 5J8-539 

the demonetization ot silver, 498 

lilaiui-Allison Silver bill, 500 

disordered condition of National Treas- 
ury, 537 539 

bond issues, 538-539 

the silver question, 543-545 

Gold Standard Act, 554 

amount of currency in circulation, 573 

see also Jianks 
Monitor and the Merrimac, 448. 
Monmouth, battle, 191 
Monopoly, 534-537 
Monroe Doctrine, 300-303. 486, 542 
Monroe, James, 260, 294, 295, 298, 300, 

302 
Montana: 

carved (in part) out of Louisiana Pur- 
chase, 261 

the Indians in, 492, 493 

admitted to the Union, 531 
Montcalm, General, 138 
Montgomeiy, Richard, 178 
Monterey, battle, 354 
Montreal, 139 
Moravians, 123 
Morgan, J. P., 539 
Mormons, the, 365-366 
Morris, Gouverneur, 207 
Morristown (.X. J.), 187 
Morse, S. F. B., 416 
Moultrie, Gen. William, 185 
Mount Vernon, 151, 217 
Mugwumps, 521 
Municipal Home Rule, 572 
Murfreesboro, battle, 447 

N 

Nantes, Edict of, 89 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 260, 267, 272 

Napoleon 111, 486 

Narvaez, 27 

Nashville, 460 

Natchez, 286 

National Conventions, 3:0, 319, 571 

National Republicans, 308, 319, 324 

National Roads, 283, 326 

National Union Convention, 474 

Native American Party, 398 

Naturalization, 240, 258 

Nauvoo (Illinois), 365 

Naval .-Ncademy, 258 

Naval Warfare: 

in the Revolution, 191 

in the War of 1812, 271 

in the Civil War, 448 

in the War with Spain, 549-551 
Navigation Laws, 81, 160 
Navy, increase of, 525 
Nebraska: 

organized as a Territory, 391 

seeks admission into the Union, 411 

admitted into the Union, 491 

progressive legislation in, ^69 
Negroes, free, 371, 480, 481, 482, 487, 510 

see also Slavery 
Nevada: 

part of the Mexican cession, 355 



Nevada — Continued : 
m.-ide a Territory, 412 
admitted to Union, 412 
silver mines in, 498 
New Am>lcrdam, 55, 9--93 
Newark (N. .).), 95, 185, 418, 519 
Newbold, Charles, 246 
Ncwburgh Addresses, 204-205 
New Lngland: 

the colonization of, 56-78 
the develoi)ment of, 72-78 
in 1700, 102, 106, 109, III 
extent of settlement in, in 1750, :is-ji6 
its attitude toward the French, 134 
life in, at end of colonial period, 155 
the Revolution in, 179 
during the War of 1812, 270, 275 
manrtfactures in, 335 
urban population in, 519 
New Knglaiiil Company, 60 
New England Confederation, 72—73 
Newfoundland, 29, 35, 39, 56, 82, 129 
New Hampshire, 67-68, 72, 104 
New Harmony (Indians), 339 
New Haven, 72 
New Jersey: 

the Dutch in, 54 
its settlement, 95-97 
becomes a royal province, 97 
in 1700, 104, iio, 1:1 
her attitude toward the French, 134 
during the Revolution, 185-187, 191 
New Mexico: 

discovered by Coronado, 28 
ceded to the United States, 355 
made a Territory, 367 
question of slavery in, 383, 385 
admitted to the Union, 582 
New Nationalism, 583 
New Netherland, 54, 91, 93 
New Orleans, 131, 259, 286, 417, 447, 519 
New Orleans, battle, 273 
Newport (R. I.) 70 
Newspapers, 158, 421 
New York (City): 

under the Dutch, 54, 92 

end of Dutch rule in, 93 

in 1700, 104, no 

at end of colonial period, 154 

during the Revolution, 163, 168, 185, 

192 _ 

temporary capital, 222 
in 1800, 243 

influence of Erie Canal upon, 328, 330 
during the Civil War, 466 
the Tweed Ring, 500, 501 
the Greater, 518 
labor troubles in, 528 
New York (Colony and State) : 
reached by N'errazano, 30 
under the Dutch, 53-55, 91 
end of Dutch rule in, 93 
annexed to New England, 94 
becomes a royal province, 95 
in 1700, 102, 104, 108, 1 10, III 
extent of settlement in, in 17^0, 116 
her attitude toward the French, 134 
during the Revolution, 175, 180, 187- 

189, 195 
cedes claims to western lands, 201 
settlement of western, 280, 328, 330 



INDEX 



637 



New York (Colony and State) — Con- 
tinued: 

during the War of 181J, 270 

the anti-rent troubles, J39 

urban population, 519 
Niagara Falls, jyj, 574 
Nichols, Richard, 93 
Non-Intercourse Act, J64, 267 
Norfolk (V'a.), 104, 154 
Normal Schools, 420 
Norsemen, 13 

North, Lord, 168, 179, 197 
North, the: 

ojiposed to slavery, 297 

its power balanced against that of the 
South, 299 

reception of Wilmot Proviso in, 381 

and the Compromise Measures of 1850, 

384-385, 387 ,.,,.., 

its strength compared with the South, 

433-435 
effect of Cleveland s election upon, 

522 

Northampton (Mass.), 207 

North Carolina: 

coast explored by Amidas, 39 
its settlement, 86—90 
becomes a royal province, 90 
pioneers from settle Tennessee, 146 
first to declare for independence, 180 
withdraws from the Union, 433 
restored to the Union, 484 

North Dakota: 

a part of the Louisiana Purchase, 261 

its growth, 531 

admitted to the Union, 531 

North Pole, 523 

Northern Pacific Railroad, 492 

Northern Securities Company, 558 

Norwegians, 511 

North v/est Passage, 35 

Northwest Territory, 170, 195, 201, 208- 
210, 212, 250-252 

Nova Scotia, 48, 129, 130 

Nullification, 241, 276, 311-317 

Nurses, instructive visiting, 567 



Ogden (Utah) 491 
Oglethorpe, James, 121— 123 
Ohio: 

a part of the Northwest Territory, 170 

settlement of, 250—251 

organized as the Territory Northwest of 
the Ohio, 252 

admitted to the Union, 282 

growth of, 285, 331, 566 

progressive measures in, 569, 572 
Ohio Company, 132, 133 
Ohio Valley, 132—135 
Oklahoma: 

carved (in part) out of Louisiana Pur- 
chase, 261 

made a Territory, 532 

admitted to the Union, 582 
Old Age Pensions, 566 
Old Dominion, the, 79—82 
Olney, Richard, 542 
Omaha, 411, 491 
Omnibus Bill, 383-387 
" Open door " policy, 553 



Orders in Council, 267, 269 

Ordinance of 17S7, 20S— 210, 250, 283, 
3S7 

Oregon: 

coast skirted liy Drake, 38 
explored by Lewis and Clark, 289 
claims to, 288, 289-290 
joint occupation of, 290, 348-350 
question of boundary of, 301, 350 
in the campaign of 184J, 347 
emigration to, 348—350 
made a Territory, 362 
admitted to the Union, 412 
progressive legislation in, 569, 571 

Oregon, the, 550, 560 

Orient, 5, 8, 10, 12, 368, 553 

Oriskany, battle, 188 

Orleans, Territory of, 285-286 

Osawatomie (Kansas), 396 

Osceola, 362 

Ostend Manifesto, 391 

Otis, James, 161 

Overseer, the, 373 

Owen, Robert, 339 



Pacific Slope, 17, 18 

Packenham, Edward, 273 

Paine, Thomas, 180 

Paint, Glass and Paper Act, 164—165 

Palmer, Alice Freeman, 516, 568 

Palmer, John M., 544 

Palo Alto, battle, 353 

Panama Canal, 560-562 

Panama Isthmus, 26, 363, 562 

Panama (Republic), 562 

Panics: 

of 1837, 323 

of 1857, 414 

of 1873, 494-495 

of 1893, 539-540 
Paper Money, 109, 153, 177, 207, 408- 

469, 497 
Parcel Post, 582 
Paris, treaty: 

of 1763, 139 

of 1783, 197 
Parker, Alton B., 563 
Parker, Theodore, 340, 386 
Parkman, Francis, 338 
Parliament: 

English in fifteenth century, 4 

first laws of, relative to America, 34 

its war with the king, 73 

declares the rights of Englishmen, 77 

enacts the Navigation Laws, 81 

passes the Woolen Act, 107 

forbids issue of paper money, 153 

and the colonies, 113 

its authority disputed by the colonies, 
159 , . 

taxes the colonies, 160—165 

its action during the Revolution, 166, 
169, 179, 191, 197 

reform in representation, 340 
Parties, Political: 

Anti-federalist, 218, 231 

emergence of, 230, 232 

Democratic-Republican, 230-232, 237 

Federalist. 231, 240-242, 265, 276 



638 



INDEX 



Parties, Political — Continued: 

Democratic, 242, 265, 295, 319. 3^4. 3-S. 

347. 381-383. 388, 394. 397-399. 405" 

407, 474, 487, 490. 50-'. 507, 5-21. 530, 

537. 543-545. 555. 5^3. 579. 586-587 

National Republican, 308, 319 

Whig, 324. 325. 344. 345. 347. 381- 

383. 388, 394. 398 
Liberty Party, 34-'. 347. 382 
Free Soil Party, 382, 389, 394 
Republican, 394-399. 405-407. 474. 480, 
487, 488, 490, 502, 507. 5-2 1. 530. 537. 
543-545, 555. 562. 579. 585-587 
Knovv-Nolhing Party, 389 
Greenback I'arty, 502, 507 
Prohibition Party, 502, 507, 521 
Populist Party, 537 
Peoples' Party, 537. 544 
Socialist Party, St>3. 579. 587 
Progressive Party, 586-587 
Pastorius, 117 
Patents, 416. 574 
Paterson, William, 213 
Patriots, 165-166, 167, 168, 173, 174" 

176, 179 
Patroon System, 91 
Pawtucket (R. I.), 70. 248 
Payne-Aldrich Bill, 581 
Peace Movement, 568 
Peary, Robert E., 523 
Pemberton, C/en. J. C, 354. 457 
Pendleton Act, 509 
Peninsular Campaign, 448—449 
Penn, William, 96, 97-100 
Penn Charter School, iii 
Pennsylvania: 

settlement of, 97-101 
in 1700, 102, 104, 110, III 
Germans and Scotch-Irish in, 117-J19 
her attitude toward the French, 134 
settlement of western, 143, 249 
during the Revolution, 175, 181, 195 
insurrection in, 227 
public schools in, 336 
urban population in, 519 
Pennsylvania Dutch, 1 17-1 18 
Pensacola (Horida), 273 
Pensions, 533, 566 
Peoples' Party, 537. 544 
Pepperell, Sir William, 130 
Pequot War, 71 
Perry, Commodore M. C., 368 
Perry, O. H., 271 
Perryville, battle, 446 
Personal Liberty Laws, 393-394. 424 
Petersburg, battle, 461-462 
Petition, Right of, 342 
Petroleum, 535-536. 573 
Philadelphia: 

founding of, 99—101 

in 1700, 104 

at end of colonial period, 154-155 

a fashionable city, 156 

during the Revolution, 168, 172, 176, 

187. 191 

constitutional convention in, 213 

temporary capital, 228 

its growth, 243, 417, 519 

exposition in, 495 
Philip II of Spain, 36, 38 
Philippine Islands, 26, 549, 550. 55i 



PhilHps-Andover Academy, 157 

Phillips-Kxeter Academy, 157 

Phipps, Sir William, 129 

Phonograph, 514 

Pierce, Franklin, 388, 397 

Pike, Zebulon, 289 

Pilgrims, 57-61 

Pinckney, C. C, 213, 238, 241, 265 

Pinckney, Thomas, 238 

Pinkney, William, 269 

Pioneer life, 147-148, 292-293 

Piracy, 6, 36, 89, 258 

Pitt, Fort, 138, 142 

Pitt, William, 137 

Pittsburgh, 143, 280, 418, 495, 519 

Pittsburgh Landing, battle, 445 

Pizarro, 28 

Piatt, Senator (of New York), 508 

Piatt Amendment, 552 

Plattsburg, battle, 272 

Plow, the, 5, 246, 358, 512 

Plymouth (Colony) 57-61, 76, 77 

Plymouth Company, 43, 44, 56 

Plymouth (town), 60 

Poe, Edgar Allen, 338 

Point Pleasant, battle, 144 

Polk, James K., 347, 348, 350-355 

Ponce de Leon, 26 

Pontiac's Conspiracy, 142-143 

Pools, 536 

" Poor Whites," 370 

Pope, General, 447, 451 

Population: 

in Europe in fifteenth century, 2 
of colonies in 1700, 104 
of colonies in 1750, 121 
at end of colonial period, 154 
of United States, 243, 254, 413, 515, 573 
center of, 413 
Populists, 537 

Port Hudson, 457 

Portland (Oregon), 412, 492 

Porto Rico, 25, 551, 552 

Portsmouth (New Hampshire), 67, 104 

Portsmouth (Ohio), 251 

Portugal 9, 10, 12 

Postal Savings Banks, 537, 581-582 

Post Office and Postal Matters, 6, 108, 
154, 177. 249, 417, 581-582 

Powderly, Terence V., 520 

Prairies, 19 

Preemption Act, 357 

Presbyterians, no, 118, 381 

Prescott, William, 338 

President, office of, 216 

Presidential Succession Act, 525 

President, see under their several names 

Presque Isle, fort, 133 

Price, General, 438 

Princeton, battle, 186 

Pring, Martin, 56 

Printing, 7 

Proclamation of 1763, 142 

Progress, table of: 

between 1870 and 1890, 514 
between 1900 and 1912, S73 

Progress and Poverty, 529 

Progressive Party, 586-587 

Prohibatory Act, 179 

Prohibition Party, 502, 507, 521 



INDEX 



639 



Protection, 275, 303, 309, 314, 494, 530, 

533 
Protestantism, 4, 32, 37, 38, 57 
Providence (R. I.), 69, 418 
Provincetov/n, 60 

Publicity of campaign funds, 583-584 
Public Lands, 278-279, 337, 357, 470, 491, 

492 
Public Schools, III, 157, 243, 336-338, 

419, 51S. 516, 564-56S 
see also Education 
Pueblo (Colorado), 412 
Pujo Report, 577 
Pullman Strike, 540-541 
Pumpkins, 19 
Pure Food Act, 578 
Puritans and Puritanism, 58, 63—65, 74, 

95, no, 155 

Q 

Quakers, 75, 89, 95, 96, 97, no, 156 
Quebec, 51-53. 129. 138, 178 
Quebec Act, 169-170 
Queen Anne's War, 130 
Quincy, Josiah, 276 

B 

Railroads, 329, 409-410, 414. 434, 49i, 
492, 494, 496, 510, 514, 526-527, 537, 
573, 578, 583 „ 
Rainfall, average, 18 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 39-41 
Randolph, Edmund, 213, 226 
Randolph, John, 309 
Randolph, Peyton, 172 
Rate Law: 

of 1906, 578 

of 1910, 583 
Raymond, H. J., 421 
Reaper, the, 358, 470, 512 
Recall, the, 569-570 
Reciprocity, 534, 547, 556 
" Reconcentration," 548 
Reconstruction: 

Lincoln's policy of, 476-477 

Johnson's efforts in the work of, 478- 

479 
Congressional plan of, 479-484 
final measures of, 487-488, 506 
aftermath of^ 499-500 

Red Cross Society, 567 

Redemption Act, 497 

Referendum, 569-571 

Reformation, 32 

Religion : 

in Europe in the fifteenth century, 4 
in England in sixteenth century, 37 
in England in seventeenth century, 57, 

S8 
in colonial New England, 65, no 
separation of Church and State, 69, 243 
in colonial Maryland, 85, no 
in the colonies jn 1700, 109— no 
guarantee of religious liberty, 209 
instruction of slaves in, 375 

Renaissance, the, 7 

Republican, the Springfield, 421 

R.-^publican Party, 394-399, 405-407. 474. 
480, 487, 488, 490, 502, 507, 521, 530, 
537, 543-545, 555. 562, 579, 585-58? 



Resaca, battle, 460 
Resaca de la Palma, 353 
Revolution of 1688, 77 
Revolution, War of: 

events leading to, 160—173 

beginnings of, 173-179 

the Declaration of Independence, 179— 
181 

the plan of campaign, 183-185 

military operations of, 185-196 

results, 197-198 
Rhode Island: 

its settlement, 68—70 

and the New England Confederation, 72 

submits to Andros, 76 

and its charter, 76, 78 

in 1700, X04, 109, 113 

its constitution, in, 199 

issues paper money, 207 

opposed to War of 181 2, 270 

Dorr's Rebellion in, 338 

and Personal Liberty Laws, 393 
Ribault, Jean, 31 
Richmond (Indiana), 326 
Richmond (Virginia), 433, 442, 450, 462 
Ripon (Wisconsin), 394 
Roads, 108, 119, 145, 153, 248, 281, 284, 

326 
Roanoke, Colony, 40 
Robertson, James, 147 
Rochester, 330, 418 
Rockefeller, John D., 536, 565, 567 
Rolfe, John, 49 
Rome (New York), 143 
Roosevelt, Theodore: 

candidate for Mayor of New York, 529 

in the Spanish War, =50 

candidate for Vice President, 555 

becomes President, 557 

continues the policy of McKinley, 557— 
562 

elected President, 563 

his policies, 578—579 

advocates a " new nationalism," 583 

in the campaign of 191 2, 585—587 

candidate of the Progressive Party, 586 
Rosecrans, General, 447, 457 
Ross, General, 272 
Rough Riders, 550 
Russell Sage Foundation, 567 
Russia, 3, 301 
Rutledge, John, 172 
Ryswick, treaty of, 129 

S 

Sacramento, 364, 491 

Sacs and Foxes, 360 

Sagadahoc, 56 

St. Augustine, 32, 123 

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 250 

St. John, John P., 521 

St. Leger, General, 188 

St. Louis, 286, 417, 519 

St. Lusson, 125 

St. Mary's (Maryland), 83 

St. Philip, fort, 447 

St. Pierre, 139 

Salem (Mass.), 63, 77 

Salem (Oregon), 412 

Salt Lake City, 365 



64U 



INDEX 



Sampson, Admiral, 550 

San Antonio, 532 

San Diego, 363 

San Francisco, 363, 364, 418, 519, 567 

San lldefonso, ^'^o 

San Jacinto, battle, 346 

San Jose, 363 

San Juan Hill, battle, sso 

San Salvador, 10 

Santa Anna, 354 

Santa l-'c, 354, 367 

Santiago, 550-551 

Santo Domingo, 25 

Saratoga, battle, 188-189 

Sault Ste. Marie, 125 

Sault Ste. Marie Canal, 411 

Savannali, 122-123, 460 

Saye and Selc, Lord, 70 

Schedule K, 581, 588 

Schenectady, 116, 129 

Schley, Coiriniodore, 550 

Scotch-Irish, 11S-119, 123, 143, 146 

Scott, General Wintield, 272, 354, 388 

Seal fisheries, 542 

Seattle, 492, 531 

Secession, 276, 386, 387, 423-426, 431-433 

Sedition Act, 240 

Seminoles, 21, 287, 362 

Semmes, Raphael, 448 

Senators, election of, 215, 571 

Separatists, 58 

Serapis, the, 191 

Seven Cities of Cibola, 28 

Seven Days' Uattle, 450 

Seventh of March Speech, 386 

Seven Years' War, 139 

Sevier, J5hn, 147, 250 

Sewall, Samuel, 106 

Seward, William H., 397, 406, 426, 430, 

440 
Sewing-Machine, 416 ' 
Seymour, Horatio, 487 
Shays's Rebellion, 208 
Shedrach, the fugitive, 388 
Shelby, Isaac, 147 
Shenandoah, the, 448 
Shenandoah Valley, 116, 118, 450, 461 
Sheridan, General Philip, 461, 486 
Sherman Anti Trust Law, 534-537. 557. 

Sherman Silver Law, 538 

Sherman, William T., 459, 460, 462 

Shiloh, battle, 445 

Ship-building, 106, 151, 415 

Shoes, manufacture of, 107, 471 

" Short Ballot," the, 572 

Silver, 230, 412, 498, 506, 538, 543-545. 

555. 563 
Single Tax, 529 
Sioux Falls, 493 
Sioux Indians, 21, 411, 492 
Sitting Hull, 492 

Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, 432, 437 
Slater, Samuel, 248 
Slavery: 

how regarded in the sixteenth century, 

36 
in colonial Virginia, 49 
in the colonies, 106, 156 
in colonial Georgia, 123, 124 
and the ordinance of 1787. 209 



Slavery — Continued : 
sentiment against, 244 
conditions of slave life (1800), 245 
Fugitive Slave laws, 245 
in Imiiana and Illinois, 283 i 
and cotton culture, 288 
in Missouri, 290 

and tile Missouri Compromise, 297-300 
balancing of free States and slave 

States, 299 
abolished throughout British Empire, 

340 
the abolition movement, 340-342 
opi)osition to extension of, 297, 378, 

401-407 
in Texas, 346 

reaches the limits of its area, 362 
slaveholders, poor whites, free negroes^ 

369 373 
legal status of the slave, 372-373 
conditions of slave life (1850), 373-376, 
moral and industrial aspects of slavery, 

376-378 ^-^-'' 

■ the Wilinot I'roviso, 380-382 
the Compromise of 1850, 383-387 
the execution of the Fugitive Slave 

Law, 387-389 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 

389-391 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 389 
resistance to the Fvigitive Slave Law, 

393-394 
the question of in Kansas, 395-398, 

401-402 
the Dred Scott Decision, 399-401 ^ 
Lincoln-Douglas debate, 402-405^ 
legalized by the Constitution of the 

Confederacy, 424 
Emancipation Proclamation, 453-455/ 
the abolition of, 479 ^ 

Slave trade, 36, 109, 244, 245, 372, 385 

Slidell, John, 352, 440 

Smith, Caleb B., 430 

Smith, (jreen Clay, 502 

Smith, John, 45-47, 57 

Smith, Robert, 257 

Smuggling, 160-161 

Socialism, 339 

Socialist Party, 563, 579, 587 

South Bend (Ohio), 251 

South, the: 

its system of slave labor, 297 

its power balanced against that of the 

North, 299 
and the Tariff of 1828, 312 
its trade relations, 333, 414, 47'-473. 

494 
its interest in slavery, 377 
reception of Wilmot Proviso, 381 
and the Compromise Measures of 1850, 

384-385. 387 
effect of Lincoln's election upon, 423-424 
its strength compared with the North, 

433-435 
industrial conditions in, during the 

War, 471-473 
removal of troops from, 506 
revival of, 509-510 

effect of election of Cleveland upon, 522 
South Carolina: 

its settlement, 87-90 



INDEX 



641 



South Carolina — Continued: 

becomes a royal province, 90 

during the Kevolution, 169, 171, 181, 
185, 192 

protests against tariff of i8j8, 312 

nullihcation movement in, 315-317 

withdraws from the Union, 4J4 

during the Civil War, 4J6 

" black codes " in, 481 

restored to the L'nion, 484 

carpet bag rule in, 499, 506 
South Dakota: 

a part of the Louisiana I'urchase, 361 

admitted to the Union, 531 
Spain : 

in fifteenth century, 3 

assists Columbus, 10 

establishes the line of demarcation, u 

her power in the West Indies, 25, ^y 

extent of her claims, 29 

in full possession of Atlantic coast, 32 

clashes with England, 36-39 

receives f>ouisiana, 139 

unfriendly conduct of, 203 

closes tiie Mississippi, 259 

cedes Florida to United States, 288 

relinquishes her claim to Oregon, 290 

War with, 547-55^ 

loses Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip- 
pines, 551 
Spanish War: 

events leading to, 547-549 

military operations of, 549-551 

outcome of, 55'-55^ 
" Specie Circular," 322 
Spoils System, 310-311, 507, 524-525 
Spokane, 531 

Spottswood, Alexander, 116, 132 
Spottsylvania Courthouse, battle, 461 
Springfield (Mass.), 71 
" Squatter " sovereignty, 390 
Stamp Act, 162-163 
Stamp Act Congress, 163-164 
Standard Oil Company, 535, 584 
Standish, Miles, 61 
Stanton, Edwin M., 430, 485 
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 570 
Slanwix, Fort, treaty of, 143 
Stark, Colonel John, 188 
Star of the West, 426 
States: 

their constitution, iii, 199 

their governments, 199-201 

their powers, 200, 201 

under the Confederation, 202, 204-206 

under the Constitution, 214-215, 217 

rights of, 230-231, 241, 276, 313 

see also names of the several States 
Steamboat, 284, 331 
Steel, 512 
Steel Trust, 584 
Stephens, A. H., 424, 42? 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 480 
Stockton (California), 364 
Stockton, Commodore, 354 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 389 
Strikes, 495, 528, 540, 559 
Stuyvesant, Peter, 92 
Subsidies, ship, 415 

gufirage, 65, 113, 199, 244, 293, 483, 519, 
521. 570, 571 



Sugar and Molasses Act, 161 
Sullivan, General, 195 
Sumner, Charles, 396, 397, 480 
Sumter, Thomas, 193 
Sumter, F'ort, 426, 430-431 
Supreme Court of the United States, 216, 
226, 295-297, 314, 399-401, 496, 503, 
^ 541. 5S8, 578, 584 
Surplus, tlie, 2:--, 5-^9. S.i.i 
Swedes, the, 92, 99, 511 
Syracuse, 330, 388, 418 



I acoma, 492, 531 

Taft, William H., 579, 580, 581, 583, 584, 

5S5, 586 
lallmadge, James, 297 
Tammany Hall, 500 
Taney, Roger I'., 4or) 
Tariff, the: 

under the Confederation, 205-206 

the first, 227 

the first jirotectivc (1S16), 275 

of 1824, 303 

of "Abominations" (1828), 308-309. 
312 

of 1832, 314 

compromise tariff of 1833, 316 

the Walker, 348 

of 1857, 414 

the Morrill Bill, 468 

the War tariff, 468 

of 1883, 509 

Cleveland's message on, 529 

McKinley Bill, 533-534 

the Wilson Act, 541, 542 

tiie Dingley Bill, 546-547 

Payne-Aldrich Bill, 581' 

the Underwood Bill, 588-589 
Taxation: 

England taxes the colonies, 160-165 

without representation, 163-164 

under the Articles of Confederation, 
204 

under the Constitution, 217 

internal revenue, 227, 258, 468, 498 

during the Civil War, 467-469 

Income Tax, 468, 498, 541, 571, 537, 589 

single tax, 529 
Taylor, Zachary, 353, 381, 387 
Tea, tax on, 164, 165, 168, 169, 191 
Teach, Edward, 89 
Tecumseh, 282 
Telegraph, 416-417 
Telephone, 514 
Tennessee: 

settlement of, 146-147 

admitted to the Union, 250 

withdraws from the Union, 433 

during the Civil War, 444, 447, 457- 
458, 460 

restored to the Union, 483 
Tenure of Office Act, 485, 486 
Terre Haute, 326 
Territorial government, 209, 250 
Territories, see under separate names 
Territory Northwest of the Ohio, 252, 
282 



642 



INDEX 



Texas: 

The Republic of, 345-346 

movement for annexation of, 346-347 

annexation of, 347, 3&J 

withdraws from the Union, 4J4 

restored to the Union, 488 

development of western, 532 
Theocracy, the Puritan, 74 
Third Term, --65, 507 
Thomas, Gen. <',. H. 354, 458, 460 
Threshing Machnie, the, 359 
TiconUeroga, i'ort, 176, 187 
Tilden, Samuel J., 501, 5uj 
Times, the New York, 4-'i, 432 
Tippecanoe, baitle, 283 
Titanic, the, 576 
Tobacco, 49, 79, 84, 109 
Toledo, 330 
Toleration Act, 85 
Toombs, Robert, 431 
Topeka (Kansas), 396 
Tories, 165, 195 
Tory Party, 165-166 
Toscanelli, 10 

Towns (.New England), 65-66 
Townships, 94 
Townshend Act, 164-165 
Trade, see Commerce 
Trade Unions, see Labor Organizations 
Transportation: 

roads, 6; 145, 248 

roads in colonial times, 108, 153 

trails widened into, 119 

early travel to the West, 280-282 

conditions of travel to the West, 282, 
284 

national road; 283, 326 

the steamboat, 284 

the Erie Canal; 326-328, 330 

Pennsylvania canals, 328 

canals in the West^ 329 

early railroads, 329 

the Santa Fe and Oregon trails, 364 

the trunk lines, 409-410, 414, 434 

clipper ships, 415 

the railroads and the Civil War, 434 

transcontinental railroads, 491-492, 510 

improvements in, 512-514 

Panama Canal, 562 

twentieth century progress in, 574-576 
Transylvania, 145 
Treaties: 

Ryswick, 129 

Utrecht, 130 

Aixla-Chapelle, 130 

Pans, (1763), 139 

of alliance with France, 190 

Paris (1783). 197-198 

Jay's Treaty, 236, 238 

Ghent, 274 

WebsterAshburton, 345 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, 355 

Clayton-Bulwer, 364, 561 

with Spain, 551 

Hay-Pauncefote, 561 
Trent Affair, 440-441 
Trenton, battle of, 185-186 
Tribune, the New York, 421 
Tripoli, War with, 258-259 
Trolley Cars, 512 
Trusts, the, 536-537. 557-558, 580. ^84 



Turks, 8 

Turner, Nat, 342 

Tuscaroras, 22 

Tweed, William M., 500 

Tyler, John, 324, 344-347 



" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 389 

Underwood, Oscar, 586 

Underwood Rill, 588 

" Underground railroad," 384, 393 

Union: 

beginnings of, 73, 135, 168, 172, 178 
forms a more perfect, 211-220 
growth of American nationality, 294- 
297 

Union Pacific Railroad, 491, 531 

Utah: 

settled by the Mormons, 365 
question of slavery in, 383, 385 
admitted to the Union, 531-532 

Utica, 116^ 330 

Utrecht, Treaty of, 130 



Vaca, Cabeza de, 28 

Vallandigham, C. L., 473 

Valley Forge, 187 

Van Buren, Martin, 321-324, 346, 347 
382 

Vandalia (Illinois), 326 

Van Renselaer estate, 105, 339 

Venango, Fort, 134 

\'enezuela Boundary, 541-542 

Venice, 5, 14 

V^era Cruz, battle, 354 

Vermont: 

during the Revolution, 176, 188 
admitted to the Union, 250 

Verrazano, 30 

Vespucius, Americus, 14 

Veto power, 113, 200 

Vicksburg, battle, 447, 457 

Victoria, Queen, 417 

Vincennes (Indiana), 195 

Vinland, 13 

Virginia: 

named by Elizabeth, 40 

as a trading colony, 43-50 

as a royal province, 50, 79-82 

life in the Old Dominion, 79, 82 

its relations with Maryland, 84 

in 1700, 102. 104, iio. III 

extent of settlement in in 1750, 116 

her attitude toward the French, 134 

settlement of Western, 143 

at end of colonial period, 151, 156 

during the Revolution, 162, 166, 168, 

171, 174, 180, 195, 196 
cedes claims to western lands, joi 
slave conditions in, 245, 373 
Nat Turner's insurrection, 342 
withdraws from the Union, 433 
during the Civil War, 438, 448-4521 

461-462 
restored to the Union, 488 

V'ocational Training, 564 



INDEX 



6^3 



w 

Wade, Benjamin, 397 
Waldseemuller, Marlm, 14 
Walker, Dr. Thomas, 133 
War of 1812: 

events leading to, 267--'7o 

military operations of, 270-274 

effects of, 274-276, 334 
Wars, see under separate names 
Washington, Fort, 185 
Washington, George: 

a messenger to the French, IJ4 

on Braddock's staff, 13O 

joins the Patriots, 166 

ready to assist Boston, 171 

in first Continental Congress, 172 

Commander-in-Chief, 178 

dislodges the British at Boston, 179 

rank as a general, 184 

campaign around New York, 185 

campaign in northern New Jersey, 185- 
187 

around Philadelphia, 187 

at Monmouth, 1 91-192 

at Yorktovvn, 196 

allays fears of soldiers, 205 

in the Convention of 1787, 213 

as President, 222-236 

his retirement, 237 

emancipates his slaves, 245 
Washington, John, 80 
Washington (D. C), 255, 272, 438, 442, 

5:9 
Washington ('State) : 

a part of the Oregon country, 355 

made a Territory, 412 

growth of, 531 

admitted to the Union, 531 
Watauga, 146, 147 
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 251 
Wealth of the United States, 434, 515, S73 
Weaver, James B., 507, 537 
Webster, Daniel: 

opposes the tariff of 1824, 303 

defends the Constitution, 314 

the Secretary of State, 345 

negotiates Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 
345 

supports compromise measures of 1850, 
386-387 
Welles, Gideon, 430 
Wesley, Charles, 123 
Western Reserve, 209 
West Indies, 26. 109, 153 
Westinghouse, George, 512 
West Jersey, 96 
West Point, 258 
Westward Movement: 

beginnings of, 70 

in New England, 116 

in Virginia and Maryland, 116-118 

in Pennsylvania, 1 18-120, 143 

settlements in the upper Ohio valley, 

^ 143-144 

Kentucky, 144-145 
Tennessee, 146-147 

after the Revolution, till 1800, 249-252 
the Territory northwest of the Ohio, 

2=50-252 
between 1800 and 1820, 278-293 



Westward Movement — Continued : 

effect of land policy on, 278-279 

along the Ohio River, 279-28S 

around the Gulf of JNIexico, 285-288 

Missouri, 289-291 

stages of frontier development, 291 

extension of national road, 326 

the Erie Canal, 326-328, 330 

Michigan, 330 

Arkansas, 333 

in the forties, 357-368 

the Preemption Act; agricultural imple- 
ments; immigration, 357-360 

along the upper Mississippi and around 
the Great Lakes, 360-362 

along the Pacific coast, 362-365 

Utah, New Mexico, 365-367 

in the fifties, 409-413 

the Union Pacific Railroad, 491 

the New Northwest, 492 

effects of transcontinental roads upon, 
510 

the New Northwest and the New South- 
west, 530-532 

the end of, 582 
West Virginia: 

early settlements in, 143 

secedes from Virginia, 437 

admitted to the Union, 438 
Wethersfield, 71 
Weyler, General, 548 
Weymouth, George, 56 
Wheeling, 143, 283 
Wheelwright, John^^67 
Whig Party, 324, 325, 344, 345, 347, 38"- 

383, 388, 394, 398 
Whigs, (English), 166 
Whisky Insurrection, 227 
Whisky Ring, the, 501 
White, John, 40 
Whitfield, George, 123 
Whitney, Eli, 247 
Whitney, William C., 526 
Whittier, John G., 338, 421 
Wilderness, battle of, 461 
Willard, Frances E., 569 
William III, 77, 95 
William and iSlary College, iii 
Williamsburg, battle, 449 
Williams, Roger, 68-70 
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 35 
Wilmington (Delaware), 92, 418 
Wilmot Proviso, 380-382 
Wilson Act, 541, S42 
Wilson, James, 213 
Wilson, Woodrow, 586r589 
Wilson's Creek, battle, 438 
Winchester (Virginia), 118 
Windsor, 71 
Winslow, John A., 448 
Winthrop, John, 63 
Wireless telegraph, 576 
Wirt, William, 319 
Wisconsin: 

Explored by the French, 52 

a part of the Northwest Territory, 170 

early settlement of, 361 

admitted to the Union, 362 

beginnings of Republican Party in, 394— 
395 

growth of, 413 



644 



INDEX 



Wisconsin — Continued: . 

progressive movement m, 566, 585 
Witchcraft, 77 
Wolfe, Jam.-, 138 
Woman Suiirage, 519, 5^'. 57o-57i 
Woman's Movement, the, 568-569 
Wood, Jcthro, 358 
Wood, I.ionard, 550 
Wright. Orville and Wilbur, 575 
Wyoming: , , . . _ 

carved (in part) out of Louisiana rur- 
chase, 261 

made a Territory, 491 

admitted to the Union, 531 
Wyoming massacre, 195 



-/f 



X V Z Affair, 239 



Yale College, iii 
Veardley, Sir George, 50 
Yorktown, battle, 196 
Young, Brigham, 365, 366 
Young, Ella Flagg, 568 



Zane, Eben'zer, 143 
Zanesviile 'Ohio), 32S 
Zenger, John, 101 



LbOi2 



iiis'i 






